Sean Ryan

Thoughts on Warren Buffett’s Leadership Test, and the 7% I recently read two insightful pieces on leadership that really resonated with our philosophy at WhiteWater: one from Fast Company, the other a Medium post riffing on Warren Buffett. Different authors, different angles, but they point at a shared truth about leadership, the same central belief our team keeps coming back to in our work, especially through our Just Lead program, and in the leadership book we’re writing: leadership isn’t...

The Subtle Impacts of an Unhealthy Workplace Culture, and How to Get It Right I was recently on a panel at an event hosted by our local YMCA. It was an interesting mix of HR leaders, educators, and community voices gathered around a deceptively simple theme: the hidden cost of an unhealthy workplace. What struck me first wasn’t just the diversity of the panel, which included experts in psychiatry, education, and business, but also how much our thinking converged. Despite our different...

In my last post , I shared a story about a fast-growing company that hit a wall when a critical piece of equipment failed, and an essential system (in this case, shipping) hit its limits. Everything breaks at scale. But they survived this perfect storm. Why? Before the crisis, they had begun investing in key fundamentals, particularly the leadership team that successfully steered them through the storm. If you want to scale without imploding, there are some key things you need to get right....