Here’s To 2025: Best Leadership Tips For You Moving Into 2026: Take The Lead 12/23/2025

It’s been a rough and tumble year for sure, and the CEOs, entrepreneurs, founders, innovators, leaders and creators who have pursued their missions in 2025 and delivered success serve as reminders of what is possible.

Take The Lead shares the best advice and insight over the past year gathered at the Power Up Conference, webinars, personal interviews, podcasts, blogs, and more, to come up with a bountiful treasure chest of helpful strategies, points of view and insights. Take what you need from these 21 powerful leaders moving into the new year, and share with friends and colleagues in order to move forward with audacious power.

The Power Of Women To Stand Up And Lead
By Margaret Graziano

I learned early that silence protects the wrong things. Years ago, I watched a male CEO remove my protégé from a project without warning. Her questions threatened him. Her insight made him uncomfortable.

When she told me, I confronted him. He told me to leave if I didn’t like his choice. Walking away would have been easier, but I didn’t. I fought for my IP. I stood for the work we built, for her, and for my own values. That moment changed my life, becoming the seed of Keen Alignment.

Be the Light: Disrupt the Darkness

I’m struggling to write this week.

During the season of jingling joy, when people are celebrating holidays—Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and recently Diwali—that feature light as a metaphor for the positive, violence and bad news are coming at us rapid fire. It feels close. Personal.
Heavy.

If you’re feeling like me, I’m not here to tell you everything will be okay. I don’t know that it will.

What I do know is this: darkness doesn’t end itself. Someone has to disrupt it.

Women's Compassionate Leadership Needed Now

At a time when women's leadership is needed more than ever, the numbers show a different story. "Compassionate leadership—often dismissed in the past as “too soft”—is now recognized as emotional intelligence, and neuroscience confirms it’s essential to how humans thrive. While anyone can develop it, women are often more naturally attuned to compassion, connection, and empathy. This isn’t a weakness. It’s the new leadership advantage."
More of the data reveals:

"Success isn’t just numbers. It’s trust, loyalty, development, and feeling valued. Korn Ferry’s 2025 Workforce Survey found compensation matters most—but not as money alone. Employees define compensation as: "Am I valued? Do you care about me as a human, not just a resource—especially in the age of AI?"