The Leadership Investor - issue #4

Hello, and welcome to issue #4 of this newsletter. I’m delighted you’re here. Let’s dive into this week’s insights!

We’re in full Fire Horse season, and it’s showing up in conversations with clients. Wanting to move, think, and make decisions faster. Get out ahead of whatever insanity 2026 is going to bring.

“I feel the need - the need for speed.” - Maverick and Goose, naval aviators

Fire Horse energy does not reward hesitation. It rewards boldness and initiative. It favors those who act, not those who linger in endless analysis. (“Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.”)

But here is the part we’re hesitant to admit. Speed requires conflict.

You cannot accelerate decision making if people are quietly disagreeing in hallways. You cannot innovate if skepticism shows up after the launch plan is approved. You cannot build trust if tension is swallowed instead of surfaced.

Constructive conflict fuels our need for speed. Trust is built when we can disagree early and stay connected. When we raise concerns while there is still time to shape the idea. When we have the courage to say, “I see it differently,” and remain fully invested in the relationship.

Fire Horse energy will not wait for the last-minute objector. This is the time, as leaders, to harness your courage to show up, stand up, and speak up. Watch for your moment - like that Top Gun moment with the MiGs - and if the perfect moment doesn’t appear, create it.

T-minus 21 days (3 weeks!) until the March 17th publication date of my book. As subscribers you’re receiving sneak peeks into the first few chapters.

In podcasts and interviews I’ve been asked for the “why” of my book. Here it is, excerpted from the Introduction.

Our programs can be better. It’s time to change how we approach investing in leaders….This book offers a reimagining of leadership investment based on my experience coaching, advising, and collaborating with leaders at all levels.

It’s easy to be swayed by industry colleagues who swear by coaching, love mentoring, or insist on virtual training. But too often, these one-off and unintegrated initiatives produce limited results that aren’t reinforced or maintained. The programs become orphans, starved for attention and eventually forgotten. I’ve seen the most delightfully designed, fantastically facilitated leadership programs fail because they were not connected to organizational reality.

All that investment—time, money, and resources—produced limited, if any, returns.

Leaders deserve better. We, as leadership investors, can do better.

For more than 25 years, I’ve worked inside organizations and alongside them as a consultant, coach, and facilitator. I kept seeing the same pattern repeat. Smart, capable leadership investors doing good work, but struggling to explain why that work mattered in business terms. Programs were well designed, well intentioned, and often well received. And yet when budgets tightened or priorities shifted, leadership investment was the first thing questioned or cut. Those investors couldn’t answer, “How does this program help the organization hit its goals?”

I realized there was a missing translation layer. Leadership investors weren’t failing. They were speaking a different language than the business.

This book is my attempt to bridge that gap and help those in organizations who care about, design, and deliver leadership development programs think, decide, and position their work like investors.

Because we absolutely CAN do better for our leaders.

Last week I facilitated a leadership workshop on strategic influence - the disciplined process of making ideas persuasive, credible, and visible enough that people can actually move on them.

After a morning of skill building and an afternoon of Shark Tank style pitches, someone said what had been simmering.

“We might be over-relying on consensus.”

This is a deeply inclusive organization. High engagement. Leaders who genuinely care and invite in the quieter voices. No bulldozers.

And yet decisions were crawling.

Meetings (often too many) would lead to vibrant discussions and thoughtful decisions. Then a quiet objection would surface later, in a hallway or chat, and the whole thing would stall.

Inclusion had drifted into unanimity.

Here is the truth: you can have your cake and eat it, too. You can build a supportive, psychologically safe culture and still make tough calls. You can welcome dissent and expect it to happen in the room. You can hash things out, disagree, and advance without 100 percent agreement.

Strategic influence is what makes that possible. When leaders clearly frame the stakes, the decision criteria, and the timeline, critical information surfaces early. Conflict becomes productive. People feel heard. Decisions follow - ones that stick.

Safety means you get a voice - not necessarily a veto. Safety also empowers leaders to say, “You had your chance to weigh in. Now we move.”

As you’re learning about me, I use all the tools in my toolbox. I integrate my experience as a professional tarot reader, student of astrology, and believer in synchronicity and manifestation into my workplace writing.

The latest in our 2026 mystical mayhem? Mercury goes retrograde on February 26th.

All planets go retrograde. It’s when they appear to be traveling backwards in the sky, thanks to planetary positioning optical illusions. When a planet is retrograde, its energy slows down, goes inward, and can feel opposed to its usual intentions. Not bad or wrong, just different. And, with the right intentions, we can benefit immensely from these periods.

Our friend Mercury rules analysis, mental processing, and communication. It’s also tied to transportation, technology, and travel. So, when Mercury is retrograde, we have to review our math, double check our emails, and be prepared for airport delays and traffic jams.

Your homework - take a pause and honor the REs.

What’s our guide through this Mercury retrograde? I asked my intuition-harnessing tarot cards, and received the Hermit. A perfect partner for our REs. The Hermit’s lantern lights only our immediate path, asking us to step carefully and deliberately. Do what’s in front of us. Stay focused on what matters.

Bottom line? Trust yourself and your chosen road. It’s the right one for where you are right now.

I began this issue talking about speed, and then talked about slowing down. Mercury retrograde in a Fire Horse year? Feels like a cosmic paradox.

This isn’t about “holding your horses.” It’s about knowing where you want your horses to go and what you want to gain when you get there. Intentionality matters.

Fire Horse energy is not random speed. It is directional force that rewards decisive action. Not ego-driven frantic motion or speed for speed’s sake.

Let’s connect the dots:

Three considerations for the week:

Until next time,

Tina