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Raise your hand if your credit card has been personally victimized by the J. Crew rollneck sweater. Did you raise your hand, with it loosely hugged by a knit cotton sleeve featuring a rolled hem? One thats no longer available online, and for that reason makes you feel part of a selective in-group? Yes? Then say, thank you, Julia Collier. Over the past two weeks, Collier, J. Crew’s chief marketing officer, has directly influenced your shopping habits. The next rollneck generation campaign is her brainchild. It first rolled out September 16 and has since wormed its way into our brains with a compelling cast of seven including actor Benito Skinner, actress Molly Gordon, and singer Maggie Rogers, all in the brands rollneck sweaters, which range in price from $98 to $118. It’s Collier’s first major J. Crew campaign since joining the company as CMO in January following a five-year run as Skimss senior vice president of brand marketing. A few of her past hits: cinematic Skims campaigns with the North Face, ultimate brat Charli XCX, a powerful Team USA, Lana Del Rey for Valentines Day, and dreamy Nicola Coughlan shot by Elizaveta Porodina. Now, the next rollneck generation gives a core J. Crew product thats been around for more than 30 years new life. Collier produced the campaign with hyper-specific talent and elevated creative choices, including a very specific vintage lacrosse stick prop and real film for that authentic grainy effect. It shows that to breakthrough in hyper-content-saturated online spaces like TikTok, brand marketing needs to become brandtainment. “I believed at Skims, and I believe at J. Crewand I believe all brands have the opportunity to do thisthat we are entertainers, says Collier. Our role as a brand is, yes, to sell clothes, but it’s really to entertain our audiences and to entertain our customers, and behave almost like media. You can’t just do one thing. The ad has almost worked too well, because the sweater is nearly impossible to find now. Online, most colors are out of stock or preorder. New customers to J. Crew’s website increased almost 40% the week of launch compared to the week prior. Social engagement and impressions are far exceeding anything else we’ve done really around this type of campaign in a long time, according to Collier. [Photo: J. Crew] J. Crews revival Its been a while since anyones cared much about J. Crew. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2020 following pandemic-related forced store closures and a slow pivot to e-commerce. This proved to be unsustainable headwinds for the company to take on, considering its significant debt related to a 2011 private equity leveraged buyout that took the company private. But a lack of cultural relevancy predated, or perhaps in part precipitated, those rocky financials. Both longtime creative director Jenna Lyons and CEO Mickey Drexler left the company in 2017. The era of the day-to-night statement necklace was over, and it seemed like American culture had read J. Crew its last rites, too. But after J. Crew emerged from bankruptcy in late 2020, it began a period of business stabilization that included the internal hire of its new CEO Libby Wadle from sister brand Madewell (she was at J. Crew before that, too). Like weve seen with Gap, which has followed a remarkably similar trajectory back into our social media timelines, resurgent companies first have to reestablish a sound organizational and business foundation to build from. Then, following that lag, the brand can bring in new creative talent on the second floor, which garners a consistent point of view, public-facing attention, reestablishes cultural relevance, and positions the brand for growth. (Enter Collier.) [Photo: J. Crew] J. Crew’s new breakfast club The brief for a campaign that focused on the rollneck sweater originally came from Wadle. The garment design itself is trademarked to J. Crew, so its a style that the company figuratively and literally owns. Its an icon of our brand Collier says, but until now it was really on an if-you-know-you-know-basis, she adds. Wadle wanted to better own it in the public perception. This plugged into the broader branding challenge Collier took on since she arrived at J. Crew. Heritage and nostalgia are important parts of J. Crew’s brand perception, and its shoppers value those qualities. But how do we translate heritage through a fresh lens, and what do we stand for? Collier asks. he ads goal was acquisition. We wanted to introduce this sweater that has been so beloved in our world and our existing customers’ world for so long, she says. While the womens version has been updated for a more boxy, cropped fit, the mens sweater is exactly the same as the 1988 original. How do we introduce it to a new generation of Americans? Collier recalls asking at the start of the campaign. It began with talent: J. Crews new breakfast club. For me, it’s always proven to be a very powerful lever in acquisition and news and everything, says Collier. I always think about what makes sense for people, but what is also unexpected. You never want to cast talent that is obvious, but you also never want to cast talent that feels like a straight up endorsement. Each cast member represented a different slice of American style, and pulled a different audience. Skinner represented a new gen of American prep; Rogers western Americana; actor Rome Flynn as the young Hollywood drama kid, actor Dominic Sessa the literary intellectual. We are an American brand, and they all bought their own version of American style to a collective that makes up the cast, Collier says. The entire cast is also hot and cool, which historically helps a lot, in terms of selling aspiration via attainable clothes. [Photo: J. Crew] Rollneck, roll deep The campaigns visual choices worked hard to bridge the gap of old and new. It’s a strategy of heritage revivalism that requires a balance of nostalgia and cultural relevance. The ad is set to The Thes 1983 song This is the Day, which was also blasting on set during the shoot. Collier sees the song as both optimistic and future facing (This is the day, your life will surely change), but also nostalgic. She brought in prop stylist Andy Harman, a connoisseur of found objects and J. Crews sensibilities, to source a specific model of lacrosse stick Skinner holds (J. Crew declined to share the exact model), as well as the other 80s and 90s era props you see. Collier also brought on photographer Ian Markell after seeing his work in GQ, saying he understands a modernization to nostalgia. And then they shot with real film. The expense of it is insane, but it was important that we use real film and that we didn’t just put a filter over it, Collier says. There were things that we wanted to remain really authentic to what we were trying to put out. As a company, we are very inspired by our heritage, and we also recognize that nostalgic element to our brand is what a lot of people want from us, says Collier. The challenge for us is how do we look back to look forward? How do we take that amazing heritage, that incredible nostalgia that gives you a feeling of comfort and familiarity and evolve it and push it forward? [Photo: J. Crew] The resulting campaign is fun. Actually fun. Collier referenced John Hughes’ movie the Breakfast Club: each character had an individual role, but it really about the collective of all of them. Set against a light gray background that reads ’80s print ad but could be anywhere, the club kids laugh, dance, and twirl, rollerskate and skateboard, bang on drums, eat Chinese takeout, hang on pull up bars, and make calls on an old-school wired phone. Who knew you could be so buzzy and carefree in a sweater and collared shirt? “I’m very much someone who goes by gut 90% of the time,” says Collier. “I can just feel when something is right, and when I saw the characters on set and they were playing that song I literally almost got tears in my eyes. It sounds so corny, but I was like, this just feels so right in this moment right now.” J. Crew’s new American prep isn’t represented by some waspy buttoned-up country club scene or the empty consumerist excess of ’80s era yuppies. It’s not channeling quiet American luxury either. J. Crew’s sensibilities might have some Venn diagram overlap with all that, sure, but the styling and tone of Collier’s first big campaign suggests an easy, everyday approach to American dressing that’s scholastic and polished but also spirited, playful, and unencumbered. You can’t help but think the cast is hanging out later. The rollneck sweater is just a sweater, but the campaign made buying it an approach to American living and style, too. That’s marketing, baby. Buy this sweater, Skinner said, reading an online review in a campaign video. Wear it. Inherit a lighthouse. Find peace. Rollneck? Roll deep. Thats it. The brand is in on the joke about its perception, a quality that Skims also had (see its nipple bra ad, for instance) that made it more shareable as a piece of soft marketing content, rather than a hard sell ad. As Skinner himself recently said, Cringe is so back. [Photo: J. Crew] 360 campaign, zero stock To feel authentic, brands need to meet consumers where they are. For a brand looking to tap younger audiences, that means rolling out a distribution strategy that captures attention spans by blanketing our social feeds. At Skims, the way that I would approach these types of briefs was really to think about: You can’t just do one thing, says Collier. You have to do everything all at once, at the same time, and that’s how you create impact. The blanket-everything strategy has a marketing name: a 360 campaign. Coming from my background at Skims, when we approached things like this, we would always hope for the virality, and if you’ve got the product right, and you’ve got the campaign right, and you’ve got everything else right, it should create a degree of virality that we’re now starting to see on TikTok, says Collier. TikTok is flooded with try-on videos of the rollneck, with some pushing a million views. I knew the ad was doing the devils work when a content creator who posts de-influencing videos to curb the bad habits of likeminded compulsive clothes shoppers crossed my feed to tell me you dont need the J. Crew 2025 Rollneck Sweater (which now has almost a million views). [updated links] Then, the ad got her too. Maybe I do need it. I walked into my local J. Crew store in New York City and hovered by the rollnecks table. There were a couple of low stacks, and some sizes were sold out. Three different women asked about sizing, tried on, and/or purchased one within five minutes of my being there. Ivory seemed to be the most popular color. The sales associate told me theyve been selling all day and the navy multi-color stripe is on two-month backorder. Our challenge right now is let’s make sure we are able to feed this demand, says Collier. But I think when you see the commercial success, you see the acquisition numbers, and you see the engagement growing across Instagram and TikTok, it’s all working together and it’s all feeding off itself. It’s kind of what I mean when I say for these types of things, you kind of have to do everything all at once at the same time. Collier and her team actually started with the tagline the rollneck generation. After a lot of back and forth, they ultimately added new. Because of J. Crews history, she felt that newness needed more emphasis. What I’m looking for is a signal that this is not the dawn of a new day by any means, but that this is something new and that this is a new perspective on a classic style. Though Collier says its not sustainable to run 360 campaigns for everything, the new rollneck generation offers some indication of what consumers can expect from a new J. Crew.
Category:
E-Commerce
So far, the mainstream business world has avoided clashing with the socio-cultural agenda of the second Trump administration. Many companies have backed away from diversity and climate efforts, capitulated on score-settling lawsuits, and muted objections to everything from tariff schemes to aggressive immigration policies. It might seem surprising, then, that one of the most mainstream businesses in existencethe National Football Leaguechose as the star of its Super Bowl LX halftime show Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny, who performs mostly in Spanish and has been openly critical of President Trump. Notably, he recently declined to tour the continental U.S. out of concern over ICE deportation efforts, instead performing a 31-night residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that was a massive commercial success. Certainly the MAGA commentariat behaved as if not just surprised, but triggered, and the backlash in that corner of the culture was immediate and intense. This isn’t about music, it’s about putting a guy on stage who hates Trump and MAGA,” conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck declared on social media. Hes just a terrible person, said a Newsmax host, calling for a boycott. One administration official suggested Bad Bunny is divisive and pledged ICE will have enforcement at the big game. Massive Trump hater; Anti-ICE activist; No songs in English, Benny Johnson, a right-wing podcaster, chimed in, adding: The NFL is self-destructing. In reality, its hard to argue with Bad Bunnys popularity, and his decidedly mainstream status. He is among the most-streamed artists of all time. The final show in his San Juan residency was livestreamed on Prime Video and Twitch, setting an Amazon Music viewership record. This weekend the Grammy winner will be host Saturday Night Live for the second time. His wide appealparticularly among younger fansis proven. Moreover, there was some similar conservative grousing over rapper Kendrick Lamar being chosen for the slot, and that ended up being the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show of all time, with 133.5 million viewers. The NFL is not really in the business of being a cultural arbiter, and presumably the decision emanated more from event coproducer Roc Nation (which recently re-upped its NFL deal for the next five years) and halftime-show sponsor Apple Music. But all three entities have the same goal: creating a major cultural event that lives up to the game itself. In the official announcement, an NFL exec praised Bad Bunnys unique ability to bridge genres, languages, and audiences. That is the business the NFL is inless a cultural critic and more of an interpreter of where the culture really is now, and is most likely to go next. And sometimes that means getting absorbed into a wider conversation. In fact, the same thing happened in the last Super Bowl, when the choice of Lamar became a cultural-debate talking point. All these white people mad about Kendrick Lamars Super Bowl performance, one X user posted at the time, I hope next year they get Bad Bunny performing the whole set in Spanish. Prescient call! But still. It would be a mistake to see this as the NFL overtly taking sidesor trolling ideological opponentsin the bickering that the Bad Bunny news sparked. Progressive observers could point to the leagues teams icing out quarterback/activist Colin Kaepernick, or lagging record on hiring diverse coaching staffs, or its track record on confronting concussions and other physical fallout from a brutal sport. The same goal has motivated the NFL through those controversies as the occasional halftime-show flareups: identifying, and courting, the widest audience possible in an otherwise fractured culture. And its track record has been pretty good. After all the Super Bowl LIX online griping about Lamar, the actual performance received a paltry 125 complaints from viewers to the Federal Communications Commission, Wired reported, many focusing on the lack of white performers. Obviously that complaint was hardly a mainstream perspective. To the contrary, it was just a marginal view from a noisy fringe, quickly overtakenand forgotten.
Category:
E-Commerce
Most brands still buy attention. The impactful ones earn devotion, the kind people will rally behind and fight to protect. Consumers want a role in movements, not just transactions. When brands focus solely on economics, spark and engagement disappear. Consequential brands ignite a shared spirit, tapping into values, not just wallets, and building communities of advocates. But how do you actually build cultural power? For my forthcoming book Branding as a Cultural Force: Purpose, Responsibility, and Resonance (Columbia University Press, 2025), I interviewed creative leaders worldwide to find out. Across those conversations, six clear strategies emergedactionable patterns that separate brands that ride culture from those that positively shape it. These strategies turn brands into cultural forces that generate enthusiasm and prosperity. 1. BE IRREPLACEABLE In a world of infinite options, cultural power begins with being impossible to replace. “A brand should embody something unique that others can’t easily replicate,” says Nick Law, creative chairperson of Accenture Song. Uniqueness isn’t about features or benefits anymore, but about occupying cultural territory that only you can claim. U.S. Bank’s Translators documentary reveals a hidden reality: bilingual children serve as interpreters for their immigrant families, navigating everything from banking to healthcare. Rather than just advertising their Spanish-language banking services, U.S. Bank collaborated with filmmaker Rudy Valdez to tell this authentic story. The documentary validates an experience millions live daily. When they later launched Asistente Inteligente, the first Spanish-language virtual assistant from a U.S. financial institution, it felt like natural understanding, not marketing. As Leland Maschmeyer, cofounder and CEO of Collins, puts it: “The reality is that brand is differentiation. Without it, a product is a commodity.” Cultural power comes from creating territory that only you can occupy. 2. TRANSFORM PROMISES INTO ACTIVISM It’s no longer enough to promise functional benefits or emotional connection. People expect activismmanifestos turned into measurable action. As Juliana Constantino, group creative director at Dentsu, explained: “Purpose-driven brands embody a social mission integral to their business. Others jump on social issues for short-term campaigns without genuine commitment. These efforts come across as insincere or opportunistic.” Telecommunications company Orange and creative agency Marcel challenged football bias with a highlight reel of dazzling plays by Frances male stars like Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann, only to reveal audiences had actually been watching the womens team, digitally altered to look like male players. The campaign proved that skill transcends gender bias, making WoMens Football the most shared content fighting inequality in the sport. Apple has taken a sustained approach. “The Lost Voice” spotlighted accessibility. “Fuzzy Feelings” explored empathy through creativity. And Frybread Face and Mean Apple Original feature on Netflix, written and directed by Billy Lutherelevated a story by an Indigenous filmmaker. What matters most is not any single story but the pattern: activism embedded as brand practice. 3. MEASURE IMPACT, NOT JUST PROFIT Profit without purpose is just extraction. The brands building real cultural power have moved beyond traditional metrics to measure what actually matters: their contribution to the world. “The key is differentiating between a nice idea and actual impact,” says Ben Miles, chief design officer, APAC, R/GA. “Design has to be intentional.” That intentionality means embedding impact measurement into every decision, not treating it as an afterthought. Ben & Jerry’s exemplifies this approach by integrating nonpartisan social metrics into operational decisions. Their mission seeks to meet human needs and eliminate injustices across communities, creating accountability throughout every function. They’ve published annual social and environmental assessment reports with third-party reviews for decades. What makes them culturally powerful is how consistently they follow this mission, from ingredient sourcing to activism campaigns. 4. GO PLANET-FIRST, NOT HUMAN-CENTERED The human-centered approach that dominated the last decade assumes we have infinite planetary resources. We don’t. As this reality becomes undeniable, consumer expectations have fundamentally shifted. It’s no longer enough to be less badpeople expect brands to be actively regenerative. The numbers tell the story: More than half of Gen Z and millennials will pay more for sustainable products, with 25% researching a company’s environmental impact before every purchase, according to Deloitte’s 2025 sustainability survey. Around 65% feel anxious about the environment’s state, and over 70% have experienced extreme weather events in the past year. Lived experiences are driving purchasing decisions. As Gaëtan du Peloux, CCO and co-CEO of Marcel Paris, told me: “I believe companies have both rights and duties. It’s an implicit understanding between people and businesses: We allow companies to make money, but in return, we expect them to contribute positively to society. This collective responsibility is crucial.” The brands responding to this shiftfrom Google and American Airlines reducing contrails to Sheba restoring coral reefsare building the cultural credibility that environmentally anxious generations demand, turning planetary stewardship into a competitive advantage. 5. PRACTICE LEADERSHIP AS CULTURAL STEWARDSHIP Leaders who act as cultural stewards, not just profit maximizers, build the most influential brands. Emma Robbins, CCO at M&C Saatchi Melbourne, emphasizes: “Shared purpose from brands with their customers comes when brands don’t behave like corporations but just like people.” She adds, “The best brand storytelling happens when it tells the story of the customer. Brands can appear arrogant when they tell a ‘we’ story.” Mastercard exemplified this with True Name, allowing transgender and non-binary customers to display their chosen names on cards without legal name changes. The initiative prioritized dignity over traditional banking protocols, putting customer stories at the center. By making it available to other banks, Mastercard encouraged industry change. 6. AMPLIFY MANY VOICES The strongest brands dont just tell their own sory; they amplify underrepresented voices and invite audiences to help shape the narrative. When brands open space for participation, communities cocreate meaning and hold them to standards of authenticity and transparency. As Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, CCO at FCB Canada, told me, truly relevant work addresses current and relevant cultural issues by providing insights and driving engagement for positive change.” That belief powered FCBs long-term partnership with the Canadian Down Syndrome Society. From inclusive voice algorithms with Google to Adidass Runner 321 bibs reserved at major marathons, they turned representation into policy, not taglines. Dove has taken a similar approach. When TikToks Bold Glamour filter went viral, the brand mobilized against unrealistic beauty standards with #TurnYourBacka replicable action that audiences themselves carried forward. Posts using the hashtag gained 54 million views and more than half a million engagements, proving that real cultural power emerges when people see themselves as participants, not consumers. THE CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP IMPERATIVE The brands that will dominate won’t be those with the biggest budgets, but those that communities respect and promote. The future belongs to brands that communities claim as their own. As Maschmeyer writes in the foreword to my book: “The brands that thrive will not be those that shout the loudest, but those that matter the most.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Discussing English football ownership is turning into the ultimate name drop. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney at Wrexham. Tom Brady at Birmingham City. Michael B. Jordan at Bournemouth. J.J. Watt at Burnley. Even Snoop Dogg is in on the action, becoming co-owner of Swansea City this summer. But the American invasion of English football has moved beyond novelty. Twelve of the Premier League’s 20 clubs now answer to U.S. ownershipeither wholly or partially. Drop down to the Championship, English football’s second tier, and nine more clubs are backed by American money. On Friday, when Wrexham hosts Birmingham City, it will be a clash of two celebrity-driven, American-backed clubs facing off on U.K. soil. Its Reynolds and McElhenney versus Brady, and it’s a matchup that captures exactly how much the English football landscape has shifted over the past two decades. The Great English Land Grab Malcolm Glazers $1.5 billion takeover of Manchester United in 2005 made him the Premier Leagues first-ever American owner. Now, 20 years later, the four most successful clubs in English football historyLiverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelseaare all majority-owned by Americans. The 2008 financial crisis accelerated the trend. The U.S. economy recovered faster than Europe’s, creating a surplus of capital among moguls wealthy enough to covet professional sports teams and an opportunity to buy overseas clubs at a discount. That arbitrage remains. In May 2022, Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital bought Chelsea, one of the Premier Leagues marquee clubs, for $3.2 billion. Just over a year later, Josh Harris purchased the Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion, nearly double what Boehly paid. Celebrity involvement was limited until Reynolds and McElhenney made their splash in 2021. They bought Wrexhama fifth-tier Welsh clubfor just $2.5 million. Their unique approach and subsequent success have demonstrated how American celebrity ownership can benefit a club via global marketing in ways traditional ownership cannot. The Rise of Wrexham When Reynolds and McElhenney took over in February 2021, they inherited a club with deep roots and persistent struggles. Founded in 1864, Wrexham is the third-oldest professional football club in the world. But by 2021, the club had spent 15 years stuck in the National LeagueEngland’s fifth tier. Think of it as Single-A baseball or the NBAs G-League, but a tier lower. Thats where Wrexham floundered. Reynolds and McElhenney started by admitting what they didnt know and bringing in experts. Their first hire was Shaun Harvey, who had previously run the entire English Football League. Harvey recommended they hire Phil Parkinson, a manager with a history of earning promotions. With the front office set, the on-field strategy was simple: Spend money on better players. Wrexham lured Paul Mullin, the fourth tier’s top scorer, exploiting a loophole that exempted equity investment from lower-league spending caps. But the off-field strategy is where Wrexham really won. Reynolds and McElhenney launched Welcome to Wrexham on FX, turning the club into a four-season documentary series. They signed sponsorship deals with TikTok, United Airlines, Expedia, and Aviation Gin (which Reynolds co-owns). By the 202324 season, while playing in the fourth tier, Wrexham was generating nearly $34 million in revenuemore commercial income than five Premier League clubs. The money funded operations and player acquisitions that contributed to three consecutive promotions from 2022 to 2025, a first in EFL history. Now, the club that sold for $2.5 million four years ago is reportedly valued at up to $475 million, and the club is one promotion away from the highest level of English football, the Premier League. The CopyGOAT: Tom Brady Gets In Birmingham City was last in the Premier League in 2011, when it won the League Cup, an annual in-season tournament, by beating English juggernaut Arsenal. That same season, the club was relegated from the Premier League and spent the next 13 years stuck in the leagues second tier. Then Tom Brady and Knighthead Capital Management took control in July 2023. Brady became a minority shareholder, and he brought his playbook from 22 years in the NFL, where he won seven Super Bowls. While the Knighthead brass run the club, Brady acts more as Birminghams self-help guru. He imported his personal “body coach,” Alex Guerrero, as an adviser on performance and nutrition. Players now receive electrolyte monitoring and tailored hydration protocols. When head coach Chris Davies hit a rough patch before Christmas, Brady sent him a video of Alabama coach Nick Saban discussing leadership philosophy. The ownership made ruthless decisions. They fired manager John Eustace after 11 games despite sitting sixth in the Championship. They brought in Wayne Rooney, an English football legend. When that didn’t work and Birmingham was relegated to League One, the third tier of English football, for the first time in 29 years, they fired Rooney. Amazon’s Built in Birmingham documentary captured Brady questioning Rooney’s work ethic on cameraan unusually direct critique that signaled how this ownership group was going to operate. The club hired Davies to replace Rooney, and he led Birmingham to the League One title with a record 111 points in 202425, earning a promotion to the Championship, where theyre competing with Wrexham for one of the three coveted spots atop the table that earn promotion to the Premier League. Is the Future of English Football American? In the past 18 months, American investors have completed multiple acquisitions across all levels of English football, from Everton in the Premier League to lower-tier clubs like Carlisle United and Reading FC. And the growth in U.S. investment shows no signs of slowing, as private equity groups are viewing English football clubs as undervalued entertainment assets with global reach. Manchester United was worth an estimated $1.5 billion when the Glazers bought it in 2005. Forbes now values it at $6.6 billion. Friday’s match between Wrexham and Birmingham offers a snapshot of where American ownership stands. Wrexham sits 15th in the Championship with eight points from eight matches. Birmingham is 11th with 10 points. Both teams are mid-table, far from the automatic promotion spots that would lift them to the Premier League. The Championship is brutal by designa 46-game grind where clubs relegated from the Premier League arrive with parachute payments that can triple operating budgets. Promotion requires finishing in the top two or winning a four-team playoff. Neither Wrexham nor Birmingham will likely earn promotion this season. But Friday’s match isn’t really about league position. It’s about temporary bragging rights between American celebrity owners who’ve proven that English football can be reimagined as a global entertainment productone that just happens to involve the occasional 90 minutes of actual football.
Category:
E-Commerce
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. Its reshaping industries, expediting innovation, and shifting how we work at unprecedented speed. For many leaders and employees alike, that reality sparks an uneasy question: if AI can do my work, where does that leave me? The answer lies not in competing with AI, but in doubling down on what makes us distinctly, and irreplaceably, human. In my work on human leadership, Ive explored how leaders can step into a technology-centric future without sacrificing humanity. The truth is: AI can process, predict, and optimize. But it cannot lead, inspire, or create meaning in the way that humans can. Here are five leadership skills that AI will never replace, and how you can harness them to stay future-ready: 1. Empathy AI can simulate human responses, but it cannot feel. Empathy, the ability to truly sense and connect with the emotions of others, is foundational in relationships, building trust and fostering a sense of belonging. Research consistently shows that workplaces where employees feel understood and valued perform better, yet empathy is a skill that many leaders overlook (and dont develop). To harness empathy, leaders need to move beyond surface-level check-ins. Create practices that encourage active empathy by making space to connect with employees to ask open questions. Listen for what they dont say, and tailor your leadership approach to the unique human in front of you. It takes more time and intention, but its irreplaceable. 2. Contextual Judgement AI excels in patterns and algorithms, but struggles with nuance. And in a complex world, nothing is ever black or white. An AI algorithm might be able to analyze millions of data points, but it cant weigh organizational history, cultural dynamics, ethical dilemmas, or interpersonal relationships in the same way a human leader can. Contextual judgment is the art of knowing not just what to decide, but when, why, and how to execute on that judgment. Slow down decision-making when the stakes are high, and dont be fooled into the belief that a fast decision is a good one. Think fast and slow. That means paying attention to your initial reactions, but its important to interrogate those, too. And hold space for paradox thinking. You need to consider both/and rather than either/or choices to widen your perspective and avoid being boxed into binary outcomes. 3. Creativity and making meaning Yes, AI can now generate images, songs, and even strategies. But it cannot interpret or assign meaning. Human creativity isnt just about producing noveltyits about storytelling, creating understanding, symbolism, and inspiring shared purpose. Leaders who can craft a vision that resonates emotionally give people a reason to care, not just a reason to comply. If youre struggling with creativity, start by creating rituals and narratives that tie day-to-day work back to a greater mission, your reason for being. Whether its connecting a teams project to customer impact or designing a shared symbol of progress, your ability to make meaning is uniquely human. Its this emotional connection that drives motivation. 4. Humility and self-awareness AI doesnt experience self-doubt, nor does it have blind spots. Humans do, and acknowledging them is a strength, not a weakness. Leaders who practice humility are open to feedback, adaptable to change, and better at building psychological safety within teams. Leaders should model vulnerability by admitting when they dont have all the answers. Ask your team: What am I missing? What do you see that I dont? This not only builds trust but also elevates collective intelligence and empowers those around you. 5. Connection and belonging AI can simulate conversation, but it cant forge authentic relationships. Humans are hardwired for connection, and belonging is a key driver of performance and wellbeing in the workplace. Leaders who invest in cultivating genuine connections foster resilience and loyalty that no algorithm can replicate. People do their best work when they feel truly seen, valued, and understood. It’s important to value the relationships with your team above all else. Build micro-moments of connection into your leadership practice, whether thats starting meetings with personal check-ins, celebrating small wins, or mentoring emerging talent. All of these practices create touch points for genuine connection. Leading in the age of AI Fear of being replaced by AI is real, but if we understand where our strengths lie, we diminish the threat. AI is not a rival to human leadership; its a tool. The danger isnt that AI will replace leaders, but that leaders will neglect the very skills that make them indispensable. The future belongs to leaders who embrace technology to elevate humanity. By leaning into empathy, contextual judgment, creativity, humility, and connection, we not only safeguard our relevance, we redefine what leadership looks like in the age of AI. At the end of the day, people dont follow algorithms. They follow humans.
Category:
E-Commerce
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