Alex Hoffer

I recently re-read The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, which chronicles Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II. In one of the book’s more remarkable passages, Larson includes a letter from Churchill’s wife, Clementine, written in early 1940, just after France fell to Nazi Germany.

The pressure on Churchill was immense. Nazi invasion seemed increasingly likely. Britain stood in a precarious position, and Churchill’s stress had begun to shape his demeanor.

Clementine noticed it.

“My darling Winston,” she wrote, “I must confess that I have noticed a deterioration in your manner, and you are not so kind as you used to be.”

She went on to warn him that he would not get the best results through “irascibility and rudeness.”

“They will breed either dislike or a slave mentality,” she wrote.

And then she closed the letter with remarkable grace:

“Please forgive your loving, devoted, and watchful Clemmie.”

The pathway to better leadership

What strikes me most about the story is not simply that Clementine had the courage to give feedback. It’s that Churchill received it.

As leaders, we often find feedback difficult to hear because it challenges the image we have of ourselves.

Yet feedback is often the pathway to better leadership.

Just a few days ago, a friend texted me after we had played golf together on a Friday afternoon. He told me — kindly but directly — that I had not been the best golfing partner that day.

Quite honestly, he was right.

There was a significant amount of business stress happening at the time, and getting away from the office to play golf had probably not been the wisest decision given everything going on.

But circumstances aside, my demeanor had not been joyful to be around.

So I accepted the feedback and apologized.

And in doing so, I was given a gift: Awareness. And the opportunity to adjust.

The gift of feedback

Churchill did the same. He received feedback from someone who loved him enough to tell him the truth, and it helped shape him into a more effective leader during one of history’s most consequential moments.

I think all of us need people like that in our lives: people who care enough to speak honestly.

And perhaps even more importantly, we need the humility to listen.

Here are a few worthwhile questions we should consider:

• What feedback do we need to hear right now?
• Are we actively soliciting it?
• Are we open to receiving it?
• Or have we quietly become closed-minded?

Growth rarely happens in isolation.

Sometimes it begins with the courage to listen.

As I write these words, our country is in the middle of a war, and divisiveness is growing.

Quite frankly, it is hard to be positive.

But can you still be optimistic?

I believe that you absolutely can.

Positivity is circumstantial. It is present-focused framing. Last week, for example, I attended the wake of one of our team members’ spouses. It would have been unhelpful to tell this person to “stay positive” or “not dwell on the negative.”

Optimism is future-oriented. It is the belief that things can get better. It is often coupled with the realism that things are hard—and still, there is a belief that improvement is possible.

Even then, I would not recommend telling someone in grief to “be optimistic.” That’s something they have to arrive at on their own. And when they do, it often becomes the first step forward.

Right now, the lack of optimism feels like a weight we are all carrying.

The Power of People

As I’ve reflected on this year, I’ve realized I’ve struggled at times to maintain a positive attitude. That said, I remain optimistic.

I still believe in the power of people doing things with and through other people. When I look at our business, I see incredible growth from our team. While our industry is often misunderstood, I regularly meet people from around the world who, by and large, want to do the right thing—for each other and for the planet.

And when I look at my kids’ generation, I see enormous potential. They are growing up with technology I could not have imagined at their age. While the risks and downsides are real, I also see a growing movement of young people using technology to think critically and independently.

Will that critical, independent thinking continue in a cultural moment where both sides keep getting louder? It won’t be easy.

But I am an optimist. I think it will.

In my next post, I’ll share more thoughts on the future as I address the class of 2026.

The future is (still) bright.

A new hire recently made an interesting observation.

Over a 24-hour period, most of our internal emails fell into three categories: opinions, thoughts, and analysis.

That’s a polite way of saying there was a lot of noise.

I appreciated the comment because it surfaced something many organizations struggle with. 

Email can easily become a place where people process ideas rather than move work forward.

But good work communication should actually do something.

• It should be strategic, helping people understand the bigger objective.
• It should be decisive, clarifying what decision has been made.
• And it should be directional, making clear what happens next.

Before sending the next email, it’s worth asking a simple question:

Is this message moving the work forward?

Or am I just adding another opinion to the pile?

Clarity beats noise every time.

One of the leadership challenges I’ve been wrestling with lately is bandwidth—my own, and that of the leaders around me. Growth increases activity, and increased activity places more demands on leaders. When delegation doesn’t keep pace, effectiveness declines. When that pattern continues too long, growth stalls—and so does the leader.

Delegation is more than handing off a task. It means giving someone responsibility for a result, along with the authority and resources to achieve it. Most leaders understand this in theory, but many struggle to live it out in practice. In my experience, that struggle usually shows up in one of three ways.

• First, leaders lack clarity about what a successful outcome really is, so they’re unsure of the responsibility they are actually handing off.

• Second, leaders hesitate to give away the necessary authority—often because they worked hard to earn it and are reluctant to let it go.

• Third, leaders may be clear on the outcome and even willing to grant authority, but deep down believe they can do it better themselves. They say the right things about delegation, yet when it comes down to it, they can’t let go. 

This Isn’t a New Problem

In a well-known passage in Exodus, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, observes Moses trying to do too much and tells him plainly, “What you are doing is not good” (Exodus 18:17). To Moses’ credit, he listened. He humbly accepted counsel and wisely appointed capable and trustworthy people to serve as judges. As a result, Moses focused only on the most difficult cases, and the people were better served (Exodus 18:26).

I’ve discovered that delegation is a struggle for leaders. It is certainly a struggle for me.

Let me be honest. There are parts of my role that I really enjoy. I like visiting our partners in Europe. I like building those relationships. It makes me feel valuable and gives me a sense of purpose.

What I’ve come to realize, though, is that every leader—and every direct report—has work that fits into those same buckets of enjoyment and purpose. And those are often the very things we resist delegating.

That realization leads me to some deeper questions:

What is the true purpose of my leadership?

Given that purpose, what is the highest and best use of my time right now?

If I commit to that highest and best use, how does it benefit both the organization and me?

At its core, leadership is doing things with and through other people. The purpose of leadership is to help others grow toward a worthy goal. Ultimately, it isn’t about the leader’s enjoyment or sense of purpose. In fact, the leaders worth following are those who find their enjoyment and purpose in helping others grow and doing meaningful work that benefits others.

When we embrace that, the highest and best use of our time often turns out to be something hard—and not very glamorous.

For me, that meant delegating the next trip to Europe to our VP of Sales so I could stay at the plant, walk each production shift, and connect with people on our team. I’ll be the first to point out that staying local and walking the floor isn’t nearly as glamorous as flying overseas to meet with important partners. But it is exactly what I should be doing right now.

What’s the benefit?

Our VP of Sales has the authority to lead those partnerships and make the necessary decisions. I get to connect with more people on our team, hear their feedback, and hopefully help them feel seen, valued, and appreciated. And I get to be home in the evenings with kids whose ages range from 14 to 9, knowing the hourglass of their childhood is already more than half empty. 

My father-in-law once told me, “Remember one thing: you have many people on your team who can do what you do at work. But in your role as a husband and father, only you can do that.”

Both Grandpa Hoffer and my dad would agree.

Three Questions Worth Sitting With

So I’ll close with three more questions to consider.

What do you need to delegate today? If something comes to mind that you’re avoiding, what is the real reason?

What are the things you simply don’t want to delegate? I’ve found that being brutally honest with yourself here, while uncomfortable, is the only way to achieve clarity. I am still involved with our European partners. I’m just no longer the primary. I am now in a supportive role.

Finally, what does the end look like for your role or your career? This may be the hardest question of all. The reality is that everything eventually gets handed off. The death rate is still hovering around 100%, and so is the end-of-career rate—whether we call it retirement, transition, or something else.

I can’t speak for you. I can only speak for myself.

Giving away authority is never easy, but it is always preparation for what is inevitable. If I cannot do it now, I am setting myself up for a painful ending to my career, and possibly my life. I want to become the kind of leader who eventually grows into the Chief Encouraging Officer—the one who shows up, brings encouragement, and then steps aside.

I have a lot of growing to do before I am that person.

But I am starting down that path by delegating today.

And our VP of Sales is going to crush it.