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Ive done everything I can here, Alex told me. But every time I think about leaving, I feel a massive sense of guilt, like Id be abandoning my team. Alex is an executive vice president at a technology and manufacturing company, and she leads one of the highest-performing divisions in the company. But Alex is stuck. The founder is also the CEO, so theres no clear path upward. Shes a respected and results-driven leader, and because she has a protective nature, she worries that leaving might mean that the business hands her team off to someone less impactful. A Gartner survey shows that over half of C-suite leaders are likely to leave over the next two years and an LLH report found that burnout rose to 56% among leaders in 2024. As executive tenure shortens and burnout rises among senior leaders, many leaders want the answer to Whats next for me? But too few leaders examine how emotional loyalty, especially to teams they built, may be clouding their judgment and keeping them trapped. Heres how to move forward, even when it feels emotionally complicated. ASK WHETHER YOUR LOYALTY IS STRATEGIC OR SENTIMENTAL Loyalty is one of the most valued traits in leadership, but when it overrides objectivity, it becomes a liability. A respected senior leader who stays too long out of loyalty can stall succession planning, miss the opportunity for creative new approaches, and risk eroding their edge and engagement. They also often experience burnout and resentment from doing work that theyve outgrown. A study on entrepreneurial leaders found that when their cognitive style did not fit the structure or demands of their work, they reported significantly higher burnout, reduced job satisfaction, and stronger intentions to leave. It is worth considering whether your current role still aligns with your growth, or if you are staying to avoid letting someone down. Loyalty exists on a spectrum. On one end, there is no loyalty. This looks like low commitment, few team relationships, and constant churn. On the other end, there is excessive loyalty. This can look like staying in roles too long (sometimes at extreme costs). Where do you sit on the spectrum? BE WARY OF COMMITMENT BIAS One of my clients regularly evaluated whether her commitment to her organization was still valuable. She did this by assessing whether she was actively growing, if the work still reflected her values, and whether her efforts were creating the kind of impact she wanted to have. When those benchmarks no longer align, consider whether staying is truly helping your team or simply keeping you both stuck. Loyalty, unchecked, becomes commitment bias: the tendency to stay committed or remain in place out of obligation, even if this behavior isnt producing the results we want. Behavioral science shows this bias often keeps talented leaders in roles theyve outgrown to avoid the discomfort of change, because leaving feels like discomfort and disloyalty. Deepening the trap, organizations hang on to long-term leaders in the name of loyalty and exploit it to place increased demands on them, resulting in extra hours or more unpaid work. SHIFT FROM A NARRATIVE OF ABANDONMENT TO ONE OF LEGACY Staying too long in a misaligned role isnt service-minded; in the long run, it can undercut both you and your company. A corporate example of this is Steve Ballmer. He took over from Bill Gates during Microsofts peak, following two decades of working closely to build Microsoft. In the early years of his leadership, Microsoft saw significant revenue increase, built a powerful sales and operations system, and launched the Xbox. However, during the later years of his 13-year tenure, critics argue that he was too focused on protecting Windows and Office revenue, rather than embracing disruptive innovation. As a result, Ballmer missed the mobile revolution and was overcommitted to legacy products. Critics also claim that he created a rigid culture that killed collaboration, and his emotional blind spots clouded his objectivity. Staying too long in a misaligned leadership role can undermine the example you set as a leader and shift your legacy from one of impact to one overshadowed by burnout, resentment, or even failure. You might ot need to leave immediately, but you do need to initiate a plan for succession, delegation, or redesigning the role in a way that reinvigorates your leadership and supports your teams sustainability. DISTINGUISH LOYALTY FROM OBJECTIVITY Consider that the opposite of loyalty isnt disloyalty or being a traitor, it is objectivity. The ability to be objective about the right decision for your career and the organization starts with taking your ego out of the game. As you reach the highest levels of leadership, it becomes harder to get direct and honest feedback. Your team may withhold honest feedback, creating an echo chamber of overly positive data. A sense of healthy loyalty includes the ability to objectively evaluate your performance against business results, future business goals, and honest employee feedback. Consider how often you invite uncomfortable feedback or alternative viewpoints on your perspectives or performance. What critical evaluation do you invite on a regular basis? The leaders who leave the strongest legacies are not the ones who stayed the longest; they are the ones who know when their continued presence limits what is possible next.
Category:
E-Commerce
When answering the phone, do you lead with a hello or [insert name] speaking? Or do you simply pick up, breathe into the receiver, and hope the other person says something? Well, the latter might be common among the workforces youngest members, as a number of recruiters have been pointing out a generational gap in phone etiquette. I just found out that Gen Z don’t answer the phone when they answer the phone, one recruiter explained in a recent TikTok post, now with more than 1 million views. I think its so weird, its so awkward. She is not the first to make this observation. Back in July, an X users post on the topic went viral. Im a recruiter, so I do a TON of phone interviews and something Ive noticed about Gen Z specifically is that a lot of them answer the phone and dont say anything, they posted. I can hear their breathing and the background noise, but they wait for you to say hello first. Of course, there are many things that Gen Zers do that older generations cant wrap their heads around: The Gen Z starethe vacant expression a Gen Zer supposedly gives in response to a questionwas one much-discussed example earlier this year. Now it seems the silent treatment extends to Gen Zs phone use. While as a generation they average more than six hours a day on their phone, Gen Zers are typically averse to actually picking it up when it rings. In fact, a 2024 study showed nearly a quarter of the generation doesnt even bother to answer. The most common reason? Scammers. As one commenter on the viral TikTok explained, they refuse to say anything right off the bat, as bots automatically hang up if they dont hear hello within the first three seconds of the call. Another added: there have been cases where just saying hello or your name can lead to AI copying your voice for hackers, its not because we are inept in how to answer a phone.” Turns out its not just a Gen Z thing; in the comments, millennials and Gen Xers also admitted to doing this. But thats not the only reason given. Others in the comments shared their belief that the responsibility to start the conversation lies with the person doing the calling. Isn’t it a universal law that the person who’s doing the calling should be the one to say hello? one person asked. Another wrote: You called me? Say what you want and Ill answer. Or, do as I do: Simply watch the phone ring before returning to whatever you were doing.
Category:
E-Commerce
In early September, when beauty retailer Sephora launched sales of Rhode, a line of skincare products from Haley Bieber, customers were more than ready for the drop. “[It] was the most successful launch in our history,” Artemis Patrick, president and CEO of Sephora North America, told the audience at the 2025 Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York. During the opening weekend of sales, Patrick revealed, Sephora sold 192 Rhode products per minute. When she said this, there were audible gasps from the crowd. As a metric of success, the number is impressive. But it’s also representative of a broader strategy that Sephora has fully embraced in recent years. Under Patrick’s leadership, the company has engaged in a wide and diverse range of partnerships that are fueling sales and cementing its status as one of the most lucrative beauty retailers in the world. Since taking on the CEO role in April 2024, Patrick has been steadily expanding what it looks like to collaboratewith the brands that it sells in its stores, with outside organizations, with musicians, and with a growing network of content creators and influencers. [Photo: Jonah Rosenberg for Fast Company] Patrick discussed with Fast Company senior staff writer Elizabeth Segran the different ways Sephora is broadening its reach and appeal. There’s its founding partnership with the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries, becoming official beauty partner for the new women’s three-on-three basketball league Unrivaled, its partnership with the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, its 80-musician collective Sephora Sounds, its handpicked group of beauty influencers known as the Sephora Squad, and its many, many partnerships with small and emerging brands in the beauty space. On top of all that, Patrick announced at the festival that Sephora would be expanding its partnerships even further with the October launch of My Sephora Storefront, a platform where content creators and influencers can create their own shoppable storefront on Sephora’s website. Patrick says the idea grew out of an overwhelming demand the company was seeing from content creators big and small to link up with the brand. “This last year we put the applications out for Sephora Squad and we got 14,000 applications. And we thought, Okay, this is a problem that we’re not able to really leverage these amazing content creators,” she says. So My Sephora Storefront was born. [Photo: Jonah Rosenberg for Fast Company] These unconventional brand partnerships and expressions have even gone into the realm of experience. The cover story for Fast Companys winter issue, which was all about how Sephora is conquering the beauty industry, started out with a scene in Atlanta at Sephora’s annual in-person festival. More than 8,000 tickets were sold, and despite there being a hurricane during the event, fans still showed up. Owned by the French luxury conglomerate LVMH, Sephora has 3,000 stores in 34 countries. LVMH’s selective retailing business unit, of which Sephora is a part, had more than $19 billion in revenue in 2023. Patrick attributes this success to being truly connected with the many brands that are sold in its stores, including ones that Sephora helped bring to the national stage. “I’ve been at Sephora for almost 20 years, and many of the merchants that I worked with then are still there today,” she says. Being so closely connected with the brands it sells has allowed the company to let each brand shine while also learning about gaps in its own offerings. Patrick says that’s led to a bigger diversity of what gets sold in stores, from lines centered on underrepresented skin tones to products for people struggling with skin conditions. “We do feel like we have this personal responsibility to the brands to tell their stories,” Patrick says. “The ones that are coming to us that we really love are ones who believe passionately and deeply that the world needs their product. And we want to make sure we help them.” This focus on building up brands and branching out through unconventional partnerships is all in service of expanding how Sephora connects with people. “It’s so much more than just a place to buy makeup,” Patrick says. “We do believe that it’s a place that people can come and be themselves, and express themselves, and not fit in but truly belong.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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