Alex Hoffer

I’m kicking off 2026 by sharing a series of leadership lessons that have been especially impactful for me over the past few months. These are lessons I’m actively learning—or, in some cases, relearning. My aim is to help you examine your leadership and make any necessary adjustments.

The week before Christmas, I had a candid conversation with one of my direct reports. It was one of those conversations where we openly shared what was on our hearts. Given that the final months of 2025 carried their share of difficulty and stress, there was a lot beneath the surface for both of us.

Of all the feedback I received, what was most convicting was this: my lack of encouragement.

My employee pointed out that I had been an encouraging leader earlier in 2025—but frankly, I was not one during the last few months of the year.

I owned and accepted that feedback because it was accurate. I shared that one of my deficiencies as a leader is my tendency to become so fixated on tasks and performance that I fail to offer encouragement. That’s not an excuse, but an explanation. I acknowledged that, as an Enneagram 1—wired toward perfection—it can be especially difficult to lead well if I’m not operating from a healthy place. When that happens, it can be challenging for others to work under my leadership.

Then, I apologized for my lack of encouragement.

Going forward

As a leader, I can’t go backward—but I can always go forward. To that end, I’ve set up a weekly reminder to intentionally practice encouragement with this individual and others on our Executive Team. For example, in early January, I spoke up during an Executive Team meeting to express my appreciation for the team’s efforts the previous week. Several people had worked all weekend on a project to ensure our customer had what they needed by Monday morning. I shared that my sisters and I noticed their sacrifice and were genuinely grateful.

I’ve also doubled down on expressing appreciation to the individual who brought this issue to my attention—not because they asked for it, but because I now see their work more clearly and sincerely value it. None of this is performative. It’s genuine, and it shines a light on their unique giftedness.

There is someone on your team who needs encouragement.

Seek them out this week. Say the thing you’re hesitating to say.

You are worth following when you do.

I’m kicking off 2026 by sharing a series of leadership lessons that have been especially impactful for me over the past few months. These are lessons I’m actively learning—or, in some cases, relearning. My aim is to help you examine your leadership and make any necessary adjustments.

Today’s lesson is this:

Don’t confuse quiet with better.

Here’s what I mean: 

• You go to the doctor and learn that your blood pressure is up. So you make a few changes (for a while) but eventually drift back to old habits. You feel fine, so you assume everything is fine, because your body is quiet.

• Or you and your spouse experience a significant rift that neither of you is addressing. You both know it’s there, but avoiding it feels easier. You go out on a date night, and it feels like old times. Still, something deeper remains unresolved. Things are quiet, so you don’t talk about it.

• Or there’s a situation with your team at work. A few people raise concerns about what isn’t being done. You examine the issues, talk with other leaders, and things seem to improve—or so you think. Months later, you realize nothing actually got better. Things just got quiet.

Thankfully, I did take my doctor’s advice to heart, and I had the difficult conversations with Sarah. I can happily report that both my health and my marriage are “green” according to my success statements.

But in hindsight, I realized my leadership fell short. While I earned a green in my personal life, at work, my success statement was yellow. 

Why?

Because I confused quiet with better.

In all of these situations, we lie to ourselves, assuming that the quiet will last. It never does. Eventually, things get loud—usually at the most inopportune time.

I’m not blaming anyone else for this failure. It wasn’t the circumstances or the people involved. It was my inconsistent leadership. To be someone worth following, a leader has to deal with what is uncomfortable, unclear, and frankly, unfun to address. That’s exactly what makes leaders worth following.

So here’s my encouragement to you:

Seek out what is quiet, and ensure you truly address whatever lies beneath it. Don’t assume it’s better. Make it better. That’s what leaders do.

This post builds off last week’s post that introduced my leadership themes for 2026. For each theme I chose for this year, I want to help you understand my thinking by addressing the following questions:

Why did I choose this particular theme? 

How does this theme apply to leadership? 

Exploring My 2026 Leadership Themes

Theme 1: I am pursuing my calling to bring order out of chaos, guiding myself and others toward clarity and peace. 

Why this theme? 

I noticed an alarming trend in 2025; I found myself subconsciously thinking, “It should not be this hard.” Newsflash — leadership IS HARD. More importantly, there is a deeper reality that I discovered through my Bible reading: I am called to bring order to chaos. 

How does this theme apply to leadership? 

This theme helps me clarify the next action to bring things back to order. As my doctor reminded me last fall, “Chaos is the norm, its lack is the exception.”  Life is chaotic; focusing on this theme helps ground me when the chaos inevitably arrives. 

Theme 2: I am choosing to speak from a place of hope — focusing on what I am for, not what I am against.

Why this theme?

It is easy to get wrapped up in the politicization of every aspect of American life. It is the elixir of our time, and it leads to serious indigestion regardless of what “side” you are on. Said bluntly, I do not want to give in to being that kind of person. Instead, I want to be known as someone for Jesus. I am okay if people hate me for that. But is my love for Jesus the first thing people know me for? Or am I known for the things I am against (even sports teams)? 

How does this theme apply to leadership? 

People follow vision. Vision is where we are going and what we are for. Speaking about what I am for is vision casting. 

Theme 3: I am cultivating a slowed-down, flexible spirituality that continually asks, “What is good for my soul right now?

Why this theme? 

I am constantly in a self-improvement and/or productivity rush. I get things done. And it often leaves me tired all the time or mentally burnt out. This leads me to be a grouch, complaining about what isn’t working or focusing on what I don’t want — what I am against. 

I also realize that I often become too rigid in my plans; there are days when I need to scrap the plan and be flexible. 

How does this theme apply to leadership? 

I do not lead well when I am spiritually hurried and unhealthy. When I am this way, I do not see people accurately, and I’m unable to take good care of them. I need to slow down and prioritize my soul health so I can gain the resilience to lead well. 

Theme 4: I am practicing intentional solitude, with regular times on my calendar devoted simply to being with God.

Why this theme? 

I learned in 2025 that even though I wanted to practice slowed-down spirituality, it didn’t happen like it should have because I hadn’t scheduled time for it. This theme is very similar to the previous one, but I think there’s value in including it here — it will help me hold myself accountable for turning my desire to slow down into actual practice. 

How does this theme apply to leadership? 

Peter Scazzero says, “You cannot give what you do not possess.” Slowing down, connecting with God in solitude, sounds very “new age.” What I have discovered is that it allows me to reconnect with the power source of life and become life-giving rather than life-sucking. Which one would you follow? 

One practice I have incorporated into my yearly discipline is creating leadership themes for each year. These themes are not goals. Instead, I write them down as themes that are helpful reminders of the person I want to be. 

To create these, I started by reviewing my themes from 2025, which were: 

Leadership Themes for 2025 

1. I am practicing a slowed-down spirituality
2. I am leading with optimism and a growth mindset 
3. I am doing the best I can
4. I am “living like I am dying” (Time is limited)  

I have reviewed these every single morning in 2025. They have helped guide my leadership throughout the year. Some have become ingrained in me (#2 and #4), while others (#1) are still a work in progress. 

Next, I started taking notes in October. There was no method to this, but when I thought of something, I wrote it down. 

For example, I was at a conference in October and heard someone describe my friend, Alex Judd, as always being “for things” — in a world where it’s easy to be “against” things, constantly critiquing, pointing out problems, and complaining, Alex prioritizes being “for” the things that matter. He’s someone I respect greatly, and I have experienced his constructive heart firsthand. Wouldn’t it be something if that was true about me, I thought? So, I wrote it down. 

Another example: Amid some chaos at work (I could point to numerous instances in 2025), I realized that my true calling is stewardship. I’m not just managing tasks; I’m called to lead and take care of people. It is a biblical calling that dates back to the Garden, and it’s a truth I’ve now written down to live by. 

You get the idea. 

In November, I started highlighting the ideas that really stirred my soul, like the two I just mentioned. My idea is to live with them and try them on. Do they fit right? Do I need to make adjustments? 

What is missing? 

This reflection forced me to confront a 2025 theme I felt I hadn’t made enough progress on: a slowed-down spirituality. When I asked myself why that happened, I discovered two things: I was too rigid, and I didn’t have any time in my calendar to make that theme a reality. So, I added these to my list of themes for the new year. 

My 2026 Leadership Themes

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far for this year’s leadership themes:

1. I am pursuing my calling to bring order out of chaos, guiding myself and others toward clarity and peace. 
2. I am choosing to speak from a place of hope — focusing on what I am for, not what I am against.
3. I am cultivating a slowed-down, flexible spirituality that continually asks, “What is good for my soul right now?
4. I am practicing intentional solitude, with regular times on my calendar devoted simply to being with God.

Next week, I’ll share a bonus post with a few thoughts about these themes and why they matter to me. For now, I would encourage you to create your own list of themes for the year. Even if you don’t implement until February or March, who cares? You will be blessed by the effort of your intentionality. 

This is going to be a different kind of wrap-up post because 2025 has been a different kind of year. The statement, “This has been a different kind of year,” leads naturally to the first lesson: Every year is different. Every year comes with challenges. Every year comes with opportunities. Want to change your experience? Stop blaming the media and others. Start by changing the way you think.

Note that I don’t intend to lecture anyone. It’s a reminder to myself.

I was at my wits’ end at the end of September. I wanted to pull out the hair I no longer have. We went through several weeks of heartache and even tragedy with team members at Hoffer Plastics. “Life is chaotic,” my doctor reminded me. “The calm times are the exception.”

In other words, every life is filled with challenges.

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On my birthday, I was reminded that in business, you can deliver 100% on time, with zero quality issues for 13 straight years, and still lose the next opportunity. It reinforced a truth I tend to forget: I am not the boss—the customer is. As I wrote in my notebook a few months earlier, “There is only one boss: the customer. And they can fire us at any time.” Thanks, Sam Walton, for the reminder.

The next lesson was to let the loss sting. I wallowed in it. I let it kick my butt. Honestly, I let it ruin my birthday night—and that was a mistake. But it eventually gave me a renewed passion for excellence, relationships, and grit.

This leads to another lesson: the loss can sting, but it cannot define you.

My most frequent reminder from my afternoon devotional this year is that I need to define my identity vertically and not horizontally. Thank you, Paul David Tripp.

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Another lesson came at the end of our family vacation, when suitcases were overflowing and jamming the belt at baggage claim. The woman working there looked at me, muttered a curse under her breath, and said, “THIS ISN’T MY F’ING JOB.” I looked at her and said, “Well, it’s not mine either, but I’m going to do something about it.”

After I moved the suitcases (with a little bit of rage, I confess), I had the satisfaction of seeing the belt move again and the bags reach their owners. I’ve adopted a new mantra:

IT IS ALWAYS MY JOB.

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Another lesson—one that is becoming more practical as my kids approach driving age—came from comedian George Carlin: “Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.” With three sets of young eyes watching me these days, I definitely need to be in less of a hurry.

Speaking of that, the most repeated lesson of 2025 (and the seven years before it) is the need to practice a slowed-down life. From a spiritual standpoint, I remember that Jesus was a “3 MPH God,” as historians hypothesize he walked at roughly that pace. Whether or not that’s literally true is beside the point. Scripture consistently shows He was not in a hurry.

I am.

So I’m working on single-tasking, reading physical books, and driving the speed limit on Randall Road.

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Other random thoughts to close the year:

LinkedIn messages have become a complete annoyance. I post this blog on LinkedIn and have considered stopping for that reason alone. I’ve also considered stopping this blog altogether. I’m continuing because I’m having fun writing in this season—but reading this blog doesn’t give someone an “in” to pitch me on how they can save us money. I’m getting really tired of that pitch in my middle age.

Like everyone else, I’m concerned about how politically divided we’ve become. But I’m even more concerned about Americans’ lack of historical understanding. Political divisiveness has been part of our country since its founding. Most contemporary Americans would be shocked by how much the Founding Fathers couldn’t stand each other at times. Reading good history books this year has helped me keep perspective.

And reading the Bible has helped me realize that I am not above the political fray, that my views are often wrong, and that following Jesus gives me the freedom to admit those errors.

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Do you want to know the problem with America?

It’s me and my sinfulness.

I am selfish, prideful, self-centered, egotistical, materialistic, lustful, greedy, lacking in love—and countless other things. I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t have the answers. I most likely wouldn’t be a CEO outside of a family business.

How’s that for candor?

But I don’t blame others. I don’t blame our team when results suffer. I look in the mirror. I don’t blame the media when I hit a bad golf shot. I don’t blame the other political party when we screw something up at work.

I take ownership.

And quite frankly, it would be refreshing if more people in public life did the same.

My proudest moments are when I own up to the people I care about. On Sunday mornings, I have peace because I’ve spent the week confessing my junk to Jesus in prayer. I also have an accountability partner who hears my confessions.

And you know what? Forgiveness is real.

Back in June, at the tail end of a workout, I wrote this down:

“Freedom is not doing whatever you want. It’s having nothing to hide.”

Lord, help me live that kind of life.

I don’t know what 2026 holds. I suspect it will be chaotic, with big ups and downs. I can’t tell you anything for sure. But I can tell you that I’m placing my hope in the reality of eternity through Jesus.

And because of that, I can end this year with peace.

After sharing my failures, here’s the other side: what I look like when I’m leading well. Great leadership isn’t about grand gestures — it’s about small, repeated practices that compound over time. When I do these 30 things consistently, I’m not just a better leader — I’m a better husband, father, and human being. Here’s what leadership looks like on my best days.

1. I go to bed early enough not to be in a rush.
2. I sleep well.
3. I start the day in the Bible. 
4. I connect with Jesus and have a specific application from my Bible reading that impacts my day. 
5. I read my daily declaration, which is comprised of truths from God’s word. 
6. I read my daily promises that I created to capture the kind of man I want to be. 
7. I pray for my friends, family, and the world. 
8. I remember that work is a gift, not a curse.  
9. I see people. I do not see problems, but the people behind the problem. 
10. I love people — meaning I want what is best for them, defined by God’s word. 
11. I voice my love for Sarah, the kids, and my family. I tell my friends I love them. 
12. I shut up and listen. 
13. I ask questions. 
14. I pray before I act. 
15. I practice moments of silence and stillness so that my soul catches up to the frenzied pace of life. 
16. I walk our production floor to see people and opportunities. 
17. I voice my appreciation to people who help me. I use specifics and not generalizations. 
18. I remember those who came before me. I give thanks to God for their work and appreciate their toil. 
19. I encourage others. 
20. I give others space to shine and succeed. 
21. I help others when they are in the trenches. 
22. I wrap the day up with a devotional that gives me perspective. 
23. I write things I am grateful for in a journal, often before leaving the office, to reset my mind before continuing home. 
24. I ask questions when I get home. 
25. I am playful. 
26. I hug my wife and daughter. 
27. I force my boys to hug me like my mom forced me! 
28. I tell my kids I love them. 
29. I pray with Sarah. 
30. I always tell Sarah how grateful I am for her and how much I love her.

I’ve spent years studying leadership, but there’s a gap between what I know and what I do on a Tuesday afternoon when I’m tired and frustrated. So instead of sharing best practices, I’m sharing my most common failures — not because I’m proud of them, but because authentic leadership starts with honest self-assessment. Here are the 25 ways I most consistently fall short.

1. I cast judgment, not vision.
2. I fail to ask questions.
3. I give in to cynicism or sarcasm.
4. I make excuses.
5. I fail to share the positive I see.
6. I don’t pray about a situation.
7. I am unclear about what success looks like.
8. I rely on text or email when an in-person conversation is needed.
9. I fail to live purely.
10. I check my email while my kids are present and available.
11. I lose perspective.
12. I have a vindictive spirit.
13. I feel like a failure because one thing went wrong.
14. I feel like a failure when 100 things go wrong on the same day.
15. I don’t observe the sabbath.
16. I don’t take vacations.
17. I see problems before seeing people.
18. I am unclear on what a win is, and thus fail to celebrate wins.
19. I fail to thank customers and suppliers.
20. I put my hope in political outcomes.
21. I talk about myself instead of asking questions and being curious about others.
22. I over analyze non-essential things and under analyze major things.
23. I am hurried.
24. I fail to journal my feelings: What am I sad about? What am I mad about? What am I anxious about? What am I glad about?
25. I fail to be generous with time and money.