The term “Quiet Quitting” is getting a lot of attention right now, but it’s not a new phenomenon. Sure, the cultural and environmental shift that has taken place since the pandemic has changed the game a little, but the rules have always been the same: if you don’t understand, value, and engage your people on a meaningful level, they’re as good as gone.

Knowledge can be passed down, but wisdom has to be earned.

That guy you’re berating in front of a bunch of kids and neighbors? He’s a volunteer. He doesn’t need your crap. Do you think your kids are going to remember the bad call in the 3rd inning or the awesome snack after the game? Think your son is going to show that 9U football trophy to his grandkids someday? No, you’re behaving the way you are because YOU feel slighted. Because YOU feel disrespected or cheated. Because you think YOU deserve better.

We tend to overvalue what we can quantify. It’s human nature. Certainty is comfortable, so confronting any element of uncertainty can be uncomfortable. It’s eases our anxiety when we can point to cold, hard data to justify our actions. It’s a lot scarier to walk the decision highwire based on your instinct and experience alone, without that data safety net beneath you. The trap there is that while it’s easy to place a value on what we can quantify, not everything we can quantify is valuable.

If we only picture good things happening, how can we expect ourselves to respond adeptly when bad things happen? Preparing for success doesn’t mean diluting yourself into thinking you’re invincible. On the contrary. It means knowing—no matter how good you are—that you’re fallible. And that no matter how destined for success you may appear, fate is waiting right around the corner with a devilish grin. So we should prepare for that—visualize it—and focus specifically on what you will do and how you will overcome.

We need heroes. Icons. Legends. Something to hold up above all others. And if we still need that aspirational archetype, then we need to defend that level of excellence with vigor. If everyone is great, no one is great. If everything is important, nothing is important. We need things to be important. So let’s honor those who are appropriately, and exclusively.

Fred Rogers led what amounts to a cultural revolution among parents and kids not by asserting his by power or authority, but rather by leaning in with empathy and authenticity.

Look, technology is wonderful. So many of our daily tasks have become automated. Advancements in the field have made our lives exponentially easier in countless ways. But has it made things too easy? Are we conditioning ourselves for short attention spans, poor memories, and an inability to relate to each other?

We like to fight. We like to feel part of a team. We love to commiserate with those who think like us and debate with those that don’t, so conflict is inevitable. We are so reliably drawn to conflict that marketers even base entire campaigns on it, real or contrived: Tastes Great or Less Filling? Chic Fil-A chicken sandwich or Popeye's? Left Twix or Right Twix? (spoiler alert: they’re the same and both delicious).

…there can be (and often is) a distinction between "success" and leadership. They can be mutually exclusive, depending on your definition of each. Profit margins can grow without leadership. Games can be won without leadership. We can absolutely prioritize results over process. But leadership is rooted in process. It's the how and the why that define leaders.

Thanks to the realities of living during a pandemic, many parts of our daily lives have turned from automatic to deliberate. Our thinking should follow suit.