Executive coaching certifications are not created equal. Some programs teach coaching skills. Others teach a coaching methodology. A smaller set offers a full operating model that helps an experienced leader build a repeatable, scalable coaching practice.
To rank the top options for 2026, we evaluated eight executive coaching certification programs using a weighted scoring model built around what matters most for long-term success in executive coaching.
| Rank | Program | CEO Experience Required | Proven Operating System | Brand Leverage and Pipeline | Scalability | Support and Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vistage Chair Academy | Yes, strict | Yes, decades-tested | Yes, built-in | High | High |
| 2 | Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching | No | Yes, highly structured | Strong brand, limited pipeline | Medium-high | High |
| 3 | ActionCOACH | No strict requirement | Yes, franchise system | Franchise brand, marketing support | High | High |
| 4 | Center for Executive Coaching | No | Yes, practical tools | Limited brand recognition | Medium | Medium |
| 5 | ICF-Accredited Programs | No | Competency standard, not one system | Credibility only | Medium | Medium |
| 6 | Georgetown Leadership Coaching Certificate | No | Research-based frameworks | Prestige credibility only | Medium | Medium |
| 7 | Maxwell Leadership Certified Team | No | Content-based system | Strong brand, community referrals | Medium-high | High |
| 8 | iPEC | No | Proprietary method | Moderate credibility, no pipeline | Medium | Medium-high |
Vistage Chair Academy is the training and certification program for Vistage, the world’s largest CEO coaching and peer advisory organization, founded in 1957. The Academy prepares accomplished executives to become Vistage Chairs, independent contractors who lead peer advisory groups of CEOs and provide one-to-one coaching within the Vistage model.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Clients say “an environment where you can talk openly” and “the most valuable professional experience of my career.” Chairs say that being a “Chair is an honor because you’re leading leaders.” |
Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching (MGSCC) is a boutique certification based on a structured behavior-change methodology designed for senior leaders. The approach is known for measurable outcomes, stakeholder involvement and a repeatable process that coaches can apply across executive engagements.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Clients say this coaching model is “straightforward, measurable,” and “guarantees success.” They also note that it is “very hands-on and lived up to expectations entirely.” |
ActionCOACH is a global business coaching franchise founded in 1993. Rather than a standard certification, it offers a franchise operating model that includes a defined coaching framework, marketing systems, and support infrastructure designed to help coaches build a scalable practice.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Clients say, “ActionCOACH has changed my life,” and that they “have ultimate flexibility with hours.” |
The Center for Executive Coaching (CEC) is a boutique executive coach-training organization known for pragmatic tools and a business-focused approach. It is designed for coaches who want ready-to-use frameworks for executive engagements without relying on a franchise structure.
What Clients Report |
| Clients say it delivers “an entire career-in-a-box” and includes “an extensive library of tools, excellent training and enthusiastic support.” |
ICF is the leading global accreditation body for coach training and credentialing. It does not run one single course, but certifies coaches who complete approved training and meet experience requirements for ACC, PCC and MCC credentials.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Reviews consistently position ICF credentials as a credibility signal in corporate and HR-driven buying environments, particularly for risk-averse organizations. |
Georgetown’s Executive Certificate in Leadership Coaching is an academically rigorous, cohort-based program offered through Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership. The program is ICF-accredited and rooted in leadership development research.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Clients say its coaching model is “a personal life transformational experience” and that it left them feeling “supported, challenged and uplifted.” |
The Maxwell Leadership Certified Team is a brand-based certification and business development ecosystem built around John Maxwell’s leadership content. It is designed for coaching, speaking and training, with a large global community and plug-and-play materials.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Clients say it is “the best association I’ve ever made” and that “the system is one of the best in helping you to stay accountable and growing.” |
iPEC is an ICF-accredited coach training program known for its Energy Leadership methodology and its emphasis on personal transformation. It is an open-enrollment program designed to train coaches from foundational skills to applied certification.
Summary of Online Reviews |
| Clients say the coaching model is “the BEST investment I have ever made” and that it is “world-class training that launched [them] into an entirely new career.” |
| Rank | Program |
|---|---|
| 1 | Vistage Chair Academy |
| 2 | ActionCOACH |
| 3 | Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching |
| 4 | Maxwell Leadership Certified Team |
| Rank | Program |
|---|---|
| 1 | Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching |
| 2 | Vistage Chair Academy |
| 3 | Center for Executive Coaching |
| 4 | ICF-Accredited Coaching Programs |
If you’d like a copy of this report, reach out here.
Tariffs have been affecting small and midsize businesses since the new administration took office, with our latest survey showing that 70% of CEOs are experiencing impacts. However, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling has added a new twist. The ruling, which concluded that the presidential administration lacked legal authority to impose certain global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), immediately invalidated those tariffs.
The decision has important implications for costs, planning, and potential refunds — especially for small and midsize businesses.
Vistage Members: We invite you to share advice and ask questions of your peers and experts in Vistage Networks. (My Vistage login required)
Get the latest insights on tariffs, trade, and policy changes to plan effectively and mitigate risk. Visit the Vistage Tariffs Resource Center.
Below are key takeaways from our partner, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
Watch this video from the Chamber, which breaks down the recent Supreme Court tariff ruling.
More information from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can be found here:
CEO members, in the Q1 Vistage CEO Confidence Index Survey, we’ll be asking about tariffs to create a comprehensive overview and potential actions for the community. Visit myvistage.com/vistageindex between March 2nd and 16th to share your insights.
Every morning, your employees walk through the door riding on the back of an elephant.
You can’t see it. But it’s there. And it’s controlling everything.
Award winning Vistage speaker Brad Waldron is a leadership and human performance expert with 30 years of experience working with organisations from Microsoft to Warner Bros. He uses this metaphor to explain the invisible emotional weight every person carries into work each day.
“The elephant represents our emotional energy, powerful, instinctive, and capable of extraordinary force,” Brad explains. “The rider represents our thinking mind, the part responsible for judgement, direction, and decision-making.
“Leadership fails when the rider tries to overpower the elephant, or when the elephant runs without direction. High performance comes when the two are trained, trusted, and working in alignment.”
We caught up with Brad following his Vistage Climb webinar on January 28th to unpack why so many employees are experiencing sadness at work, and hear his framework for addressing the six fundamental human needs that help align the elephant and its rider.
“When someone comes into work every day, all we see is the Mahout,” Says Brad. “We miss the elephant, the emotion of the person. How they’re feeling and their level of engagement.”
Gallup’s 2025 State of the Workplace report found that workplace engagement in the UK is at a huge low.
The UK currently ranks 30th out of 38 European countries for employee engagement, with just 10% of employees saying they feel engaged in their roles. That’s a number on the very wrong side of the scale.
But the report reveals an even more alarming statistic: 26% of the UK workforce is experiencing daily sadness.
“Not disengagement. Sadness,” Brad says. “That means one in four people are coming into work, and they’re sad about being there.”
Workplace stress is also high, with 40% of UK workers reporting experiencing a lot of stress the previous day.
As leaders, Brad argues, we have a moral obligation to bring happiness into the workplace. But it’s not just about being nice. It’s about understanding what creates happiness in the first place.
“So many people are switched on 24/7. They’re always reaching for a mobile device. They’re always expected to do things at silly o’clock,” Brad says. “And you know what? I don’t think it’s always the boss’s expectation. I think half the time it’s self-imposed.”
Second, there’s the constant pull of distraction and doom-scrolling.
“What’s the first thing you do in the morning? Probably do a bit of a doom scroll to see what happened overnight. See what’s going on in politics,” Brad says. “You’re always one click away from distraction, and the algorithms are designed to distract you.”
So, what are the conditions for creating happiness in the workplace, and speaking directly to the elephant?
Brad breaks down six fundamental drivers that determine whether someone feels happy and fulfilled at work.
Get them right, and you create a workplace where people genuinely want to belong.
1. Love and connection: “People look for love and connection,” Brad says. “They want to love what they do, and they want to love who they do it with. We all need that.”
2. Significance: “People need to feel that what they do gets recognised. Being a loyal employee. Doing a job well done. The biggest incentive that you can give someone is just saying thank you.”
3. Certainty: “People need to feel safe in their job. And they certainly like to know what’s expected of them each day, that they’ve got the right tools to do the job, and that you will be consistent in the way that you lead them.”
4. Variety: “Paradoxically, if people get too much consistency, they look for a bit of variety. Variety is the spice of life, after all. It’s getting the balance right.”
5. Growth: “People need to feel that who they are today is better than who they were last year. Because the biggest reason people leave an organisation is for growth opportunities.”
6. Contribution: “As a culture, the British people feel a need to contribute. That’s why people will run for a range of incredible charities and do all these different charitable events, because they want to contribute to something bigger than themselves.”
When these six needs aren’t met, people feel disengaged and sad.
So, what can leaders actually do to improve workplace engagement and happiness?
Brad’s advice is deceptively simple. “Everyone comes in on an elephant every morning. Pay attention to it,” he says.
But there’s one specific question that unlocks everything: What do you want the business to do for you?
“When I ask chief execs that question, they quite often go, ‘I’ve never been asked that before.’ And I always say that’s such a shame,” Brad says. “You deserve to be asked that question. And so do your employees.”
Every leader (everyone with the title ‘manager’ in their job) should be asking their people this question. In fact, Brad advocates for monthly one-to-ones with each team member, dedicated time that’s personal and professional, strategic and tactical.
“It’s so important because it will unlock discretionary effort and energy. Which, in turn, unlocks discretionary gains,” Brad says. “Because when people feel that someone is listening to them, that’s the elephant coming into the room.”
So, are you choosing to talk to the mahout and ignore the elephant? Or are you willing to acknowledge the emotional weight their people carry and create the conditions for that elephant to thrive?
Brad’s framework isn’t about Pizza Fridays or superficial perks.
“Walking with the Elephant is really a segue to talk about how we create more magnification of happiness at work,” Brad says. “It’s about creating genuine alignment between what people need and what the organisation provides.”
When organisations get this right, they create a culture where people feel connected, recognised, safe, challenged, and part of something meaningful.
“You create a workplace where people want to belong.”
Watch Brad’s Vistage Climb webinar on-demand here.
Craig Weber routinely speaks with groups of small- and midsize-business CEOs, and over the past 25+ years, he’s heard a range of answers to the question of their biggest challenge.
Finding talent. Building culture. Navigating technology.
In 2026, he sees all organizations confronting a common challenge: uncertainty.
“People just aren’t sure where the world is going,” says Weber, a Vistage speaker for more than 26 years and author of “Conversational Capacity. The Secret to Building Successful Teams That Perform When the Pressure Is On.” “There’s political uncertainty, economic uncertainty, and technological uncertainty. As a CEO, you need to build a team that can thrive in uncertain circumstances.”
February 20 is National Leadership Day, providing SMB CEOs an opportunity to reassess how well prepared they are to lead amid uncertainty. By focusing on 5 essential leadership priorities — clarity, culture, talent, decision-making, and change leadership — CEOs can grow as individuals and recalibrate how they lead their companies.
In the long list of CEO responsibilities, David Friedman insists there is a clear top priority. CEOs must provide clarity within an organization — even in times of uncertainty.
“The job of a leader is to have a clear direction of where we are going, what our priorities are, and then making sure everybody is absolutely crystal clear about it and lined up behind it,” says Friedman, a former Vistage Speaker of the Year.
A lack of clarity — or rather, ambiguity — creates company-wide conflict because the business’s direction is unclear. This often happens when CEOs get bogged down in day-to-day crises. Their focus shifts to short-term firefighting at the expense of long-term vision, making it nearly impossible to steer the company in a strategic direction.
Friedman said managers should spend 80% of their time on day-to-day issues in their department and 20% focused on building their team so the department can grow.
For CEOs, the ratio should be reversed.
About 20% of their time should be dedicated to client interactions and business processes, with the rest devoted to strategic thinking about where the company is going and what needs to happen to get there.
Friedman had a glass-covered desk during his first tenure as CEO, and beneath it, he slid a sheet of paper to remind him of his role.
“There were four things that I had listed: I am a thinker, I am a learner, I am a teacher, and I am a leader,” he says. “That’s what my job was, and that’s what I needed to be doing. None of those are putting out a fire.”
The key for SMB CEOs to have the time and ability to focus on long-term clarity is a culture where employees feel trusted and empowered. The best organizational cultures are those that possess what Weber called high conversational capacity — the ability to engage in constructive, learning-focused dialogue about diverse subjects and challenging circumstances.
It’s a pivotal variable that Weber believes most leaders overlook.
“If you’ve got a team with high conversational capacity, they can step into a really messy, uncertain situation and perform really well trying to figure it out,” he says. “For a team with low conversational capacity, a minor disagreement will often throw the team off its game.”
Imagine a marketing company that lost a major client. With high conversational capacity, team members would come together and strategize how to sustain the business. If the company had limited conversational capacity, employees would bicker over who to blame and complain about decisions that may have led to the client’s departure.
A common theme among organizations with high conversational capacity is that employees are engaged in the business. They feel a sense of ownership and autonomy in their work, rather than being compliant and doing only as told.
After Friedman launched RSI, an employee benefits consulting and brokerage firm, he spent the next 27 years ensuring his employees felt empowered to make their own decisions. He recently had dinner with his former leadership team at the company, where he shared how their expertise enabled him to focus on big-picture thinking.
He vividly remembered one customer service manager who embodied this, including the time she informed him of an employee who abruptly resigned.
“She said, ‘I have a plan in place and here’s what we’re going to do. I got it all handled; I just want you to be aware of it,’” Friedman recalls. “She wasn’t coming to me asking what to do now. She just let me know and then got it handled.”
That example is one Weber believes demonstrates the power of invested employees.
“You want people to feel engaged and an active part of the process, not a passive part of the process,” Weber says. “You want people to feel actively engaged in the work that’s being done in a way where the business is benefiting, but they’re also growing as employees.”
When a CEO has clarity on long-term plans, they can be strategic about the roles and personnel needed to achieve those goals.
“As I think about the future of the organization, in order for us to get where we’re trying to go, there are roles that we don’t have right now that are going to need to be identified and filled, and skill sets that we don’t have right now that we’re going to have to recruit and develop,” says Friedman. “If I’m thinking strategically, I’m identifying those things, and we’re gradually building those pieces, as opposed to just filling a quick need right now because something happened.”
It goes back to Friedman’s belief of an 80-20 balance for CEOs. If a CEO has a strong leadership team in place, they can focus on strategy while the team executes day-to-day operations.
If the CEO is too focused on the business, there’s less time to consider which organizational gaps need to be filled.
Weber acknowledged that hiring and retaining quality talent is an ongoing challenge for CEOs, but he also believes CEOs often fail to use the talent they assemble effectively.
“You spent all this time and money getting smart people around the table, but then you don’t create a conversational environment where you’re able to get access to what you’re paying for,” Weber says. “This makes no sense. What’s the value of hiring smart, capable people only to leave them feeling disengaged, uninvolved in vital decision making, and feeling as if they have a constrained ability to fully contribute?”
There’s an easy way to make people feel included in the decision-making process. Let them be part of the process.
Sure, there are many aspects of how a business runs that need to be decided by the CEO, but there are ways for others to be heard, even if they do not make the final call.
One of the best examples of this came from the CEO of an engineering firm who participated in one of Weber’s workshops. The CEO felt he’d spent a lot of time, energy, and money assembling a quality team of engineers, but he knew he wasn’t using their knowledge to the business’s advantage.
At his next staff meeting, the CEO did 3 important things:
“He said, ‘OK, in the past I’ve done a terrible job at getting you all involved in my decision-making, and I want to change that,’” Weber explains. “‘I’m going to put an idea on the table, I’m going to explain it to you, and then I’m going to leave the room for 30 minutes. When I come back, let’s have at least three concerns up on the board and let’s work through one at a time.’”
And that’s just what the team did. The CEO left, and when he returned, he listened to their concerns, and then they worked through them as a team.
It became a habit whenever the CEO needed input from his engineers. Once the engineers recognized the move wasn’t for show and that the CEO genuinely wanted their involvement, they said he no longer needed to step out.
Prior to adjusting his decision-making process, the CEO failed to recognize how he exercised his authority. It’s a common misstep for many CEOs, Weber said.
“When the boss walks in the room, suddenly people are more careful, they’re more guarded, they’re more cautious,” Weber says. “You could be the warmest, most generous, caring, accessible human being on the planet outside the workplace, but when you show up to work, that authority is going to have a huge effect on the people below you. The trick is to carry your authority in a way that pulls people toward the table and doesn’t push them away from it.”
The reality for CEOs is that no matter what, people do leave the table. Change happens — both internally and externally. How CEOs respond directly impacts how their teams — and their businesses — navigate the future.
The best way CEOs can lead through change is with humility.
“We don’t want to pretend we don’t make mistakes or that we’re not human,” Friedman says. “We want to model what it looks like to learn from our mistakes.”
Friedman works with clients to model this process — an approach he calls “blameless problem-solving.” When a problem arises, fix it first. Next, identify how and why it happened. Finally, identify what improvement could be made to prevent the problem from happening again.
The practice may sound easy, but Friedman said the biggest hurdle exists in the CEO’s head.
“For many people, ego gets in the way of doing the right thing,” he says. “They don’t want to acknowledge a mistake. They feel like they’re going to look less capable, less smart, and not as good a leader.”
Friedman believes one of the best ways CEOs can lead is by accepting the need to change their minds. The worst thing a CEO can do for their business is continue to lead it down the wrong path to “save face,” even when it’s clear that change is needed.
“One of the best examples of checking your ego at the door is the ability to change your mind about something,” Friedman says. “We reserve the right to get better. If we make a mistake, that’s alright. That’s how you learn. Being vulnerable about that is a really healthy thing.”
Being a CEO can be a lonely position, and it can be hard to find a safe place to test decisions and get unfiltered feedback. Using a day like National Leadership Day to reflect on how you lead is useful, but real change happens through the decisions you make the other 364 days of the year.
Vistage peer advisory groups provide CEOs with a confidential forum to stress-test strategies, understand their leadership style, and stay accountable for the changes they want to make.
“You’re going to be surrounded by people who are going to push you, challenge you, and really spark a lot of learning,” Weber says. “It’s a good way to check your ego, learn and develop new skills, and get exposed to new ideas.”
Coupled with executive coaching and other resources, Vistage can help CEOs stay ahead of emerging challenges rather than react to them. As a Vistage member, you can make every day — not just February 20 — a leadership day.
Momentum is building for small businesses in the second month of the year. Confidence increased as a greater proportion of small businesses report expectations for increased revenues in the year ahead. The WSJ/Vistage Small Business CEO Confidence Index increased more than 3 points to reach 97.3 in February, up from 94.1 in January. With last year’s post-election optimism now firmly in the rearview mirror, this level of small business confidence is 11.3 points over the 12-month average.
One of the key drivers of this month-over-month improvement is the current state of the economy. The proportion of small business leaders who believe the economy is worse than a year ago has steadily decreased over the past 4 months, dropping from 34% in January to 30% in December. Meanwhile, 27% of small business leaders report the economy has improved, up from 24% last month and the highest since last February.
Another driver of small-business confidence is strong expectations for growth over the next 12 months. Small businesses have adapted to policy uncertainty, as have their customers. Growth is slowly accelerating, as expectations for both revenue and profitability among small businesses have reached their highest levels in a year.
Over 7 in 10 (71%) anticipate revenue growth in the year ahead, up from 67% in January.
Additionally, 6 in 10 (60%) expect improved profitability, up from 56% last month.
These indicators have strengthened consistently since last spring, suggesting demand is building faster than uncertainty.
Typically, when revenue expectations increase, hiring plans follow suit to accommodate increased demand. Fifty-five percent of small businesses plan to add staff in the next 12 months, up from 50% in January. However, 9% of small businesses plan to reduce headcount, indicating some caution amid overall growth optimism.
Immigration enforcement is hitting certain industries with direct operational and financial impacts. “Our labor rates are increasing without a more immigrant workforce,” says Chris Lamphear, CEO of LL Custom Contracting, Inc. in Madison Heights, Michigan.
Ronnie Kahan, president of Apollo Painting and Wallcovering in Inglewood, California, describes the operational challenge: “This is a big problem for my trade. Many workers are afraid to work on large projects.”
For other industries, recent immigration enforcement has created emotional challenges rather than widespread operational disruptions. “It’s emotionally scarring our legal and documented coworkers, causing unneeded anxiety for their families, and destroying the trust that used to be felt between documented immigrants and the communities in which they live,” says Burt DeMarche, president of Laurelrock Company in Wilton, Connecticut. Indirect impacts on small businesses may include lower productivity, quality of work, or absenteeism.
As demand increases, small business leaders focus on how they can harness their talent to meet increased demand. To that end, 68% of small businesses offer leadership training programs for their leaders, which are not only investments in those employees, but investments in the people they lead. Managers and leaders are critical to workforce satisfaction, engagement, and culture.
Industry knowledge is also critical to maintaining a competitive advantage, as evidenced by the 63% of small businesses that provide industry-specific certification. Just 11% of small businesses offer no development programs for managers and leaders.
In a tight labor market, developing leaders serves as both a retention tool and a growth strategy. CEOs should consider investments in managers and leaders not only to ensure productivity and accountability but also to improve engagement and morale across their workgroups and teams.
Post-election, small businesses were optimistic that policy and regulatory changes would have positive impacts. Over the past year, the negatives seem to outweigh the positives: 30% report negative impacts, 18% report positive impacts, and 12% report both positive and negative. The range of sentiment varies by industry; in some cases, increased regulation creates more stringent standards for products and services, while in others, regulatory changes open new opportunities.
Tariff policy continues to dominate concerns, with the unpredictability creating more issues than the costs themselves. “Constant changes to tariffs and regulations have made forecasting sales and profitability impossible,” says Andy Manning, CEO of Manning Lighting, Inc., in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Volatility has frozen capital decisions and slowed growth across some industries, with some manufacturers reporting significant volume declines over the past year.
Regulatory relief shows promise in specific sectors. As Shannon Oelkers, owner of Integrity Environmental, LLC in Eagle River, Alaska, reports, “We provide environmental permitting compliance for industrial facilities, and recent federal scrutiny of the EPA regulations has driven a surge in business as business owners want to take advantage of the ‘looser’ regulatory environment. This is mostly perception-driven growth because the existing environmental regulations in our industry are not changing significantly.”
Christine Hopkins, president and CEO of ASCI Federal Services LLC, in Anchorage, Alaska, notes, “Removing the affirmative action requirements allowed us to be more flexible and competitive by freeing up both employee time and cash (cost of compliance).”
In some cases, increased regulation creates more stringent standards for products and services. “I am in the security and fire industry. Regulation generally means the requirements of what we sell are increased,” says Morgan Pace, president of Ursa Security and Control in Plantsville, Connecticut.
As tax season approaches, small businesses are seeing positive impacts, with nearly half (49%) reporting some form of relief. While a third of small businesses expect no relief, 18% remain unsure of the impacts at this time.
Specific provisions that help small businesses include:
While tax relief helps, the reality check is consistent across industries. “Any savings and taxes are being offset by increased cost of labor and employee benefits,” says Gary Rivera, CEO of Creative Design Group in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. For most small businesses, tax benefits provide modest help rather than transformational relief.
Monica Lewis, president of J.S. Brown & Co in Columbus, Ohio, adds, “In the residential design-build remodeling industry, tax policy is only one piece of our economic picture. While certain changes may offer theoretical relief, our day-to-day reality here on the jobsite is shaped more by tariff-driven material volatility, workforce shortages, and reduced consumer confidence around large discretionary investments. Until stability returns to the broader market, those factors continue to outweigh any tax-related benefits for our business.”
The February 2026 WSJ/Vistage Small Business CEO Confidence Index was calculated from an online survey sent to CEOs and other key leaders who are active U.S. Vistage members. The survey, conducted between February 2-9, 2026, collected data from 370 respondents with annual revenues ranging from $1 million to $20 million. The Index is calculated based on favorable minus unfavorable responses from this set of standard questions, plus 100, anchored to June 2012 = 100.
To explore the full February 2026 WSJ/Vistage Small Business data set, visit our data center or download the infographic.
The March 2026 WSJ/Vistage Small Business CEO Confidence Index will be calculated from responses to a CEO survey, conducted from March 2-16, 2026, gathering input from CEOs and other key leaders who are active members of Vistage.
The country needs — and, unless I mistake its temper — the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
— U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevel
When the U.S. stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, shock waves collapsed markets worldwide. Three years later, 15 million Americans were out of work — one out of every three people. Capital investment dropped from $10 billion in 1929 to $1 billion in 1932. Farm income plummeted 60 percent. Worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 15 percent.
The following spring, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was sworn in as the 32nd president of the United States. He took urgent and bold action to save America from ruin. “The country needs — and, unless I mistake its temper — the country demands bold, persistent experimentation,” he told the American people. “It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
More than 90 years later, the lessons of FDR’s leadership are still relevant for business leaders — especially those leading a company through difficult times. These five leadership lessons from FDR’s presidential campaign, early days in office and tenure as president have stood the test of time.
During his run for office, FDR campaigned on a “New Deal” for America. While he was short on specifics, his energy, charisma and message of hope resonated. “Happy Days Are Here Again” played at all FDR events. Campaign Manager Jim Farley observed that Roosevelt’s “ability to discuss political issues in short, simple sentences made a powerful impression. There was a touch of destiny about the man.”
Americans thought so too, and elected FDR in a landslide.
The day before FDR’s inauguration, banks in 32 of the country’s 48 states had closed. Deposits evaporated. Money was useless anyway — there was nothing to buy.
On Saturday, March 4, 1933, gloomy skies matched the nation’s mood at FDR’s inauguration. Yet he radiated optimism. In his address, FDR proclaimed he would speak with “candor,” lead with “vigor,” and act “boldly.” He assured Americans of his “firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” As he spoke, sunshine emerged.
While thousands attended the inaugural celebrations, FDR invited his cabinet to the White House, where Justice Benjamin Cardozo swore them in as a group — a first. Roosevelt had assembled his team in February, a bipartisan mix of conservatives and liberals, including the first female Secretary of Labor. FDR joked that the Saturday swearing-in meant they would “receive an extra day’s pay.” It signaled that his presidency would begin with action rather than ceremony.
That night, FDR stayed up past 1 a.m. with longtime aide Louis Howe, discussing the plan that would become known as the “Hundred Days,” a bold experiment in governing that set the bar for new leaders. Henceforth, the first hundred days for executives in all types of institutions would become the symbolic benchmark for measuring their early successes.
FDR’s approach was informed by three elder statesmen: Antioch College professor Arthur Morgan inspired FDR to think big. Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell encouraged FDR to take and hold the initiative with Congress. Retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes told FDR, “You are in a war, Mr. President, and in a war there is only one rule, ‘Form your battalion and fight!’”
On Sunday, March 5, 1933, FDR met with congressional leaders to solicit their support, and then issued a proclamation closing the country’s banks. The next day he met with U.S. governors to explain his decision. He received a standing ovation.
On that Thursday, Congress convened for a 100-day special session. In just seven hours, legislation safeguarding banks and depositors was introduced, passed and signed. FDR’s first days in office set the tone for his presidency and were characterized by speed, confidence and a willingness to try new things. “There are many ways of going forward,” he noted, “but only one way of standing still.”
During the Hundred Days, FDR introduced—and Congress established—dozens of agencies that stimulated farm programs, initiated conservation programs, outlawed child labor, and raised wages. Timing helped. With war looming, American industry awoke — providing new jobs and what Roosevelt called the “great arsenal of democracy.”
FDR created opportunities to put Americans back to work and to feel good about themselves. Though crippled by polio and unable to walk since age 39, FDR exhibited the courage, vision and willpower to get America back on its feet.
Taking inspiration from FDR’s legacy, reflect on these questions as you think about your leadership approach.
This article is an edited excerpt from How Leaders Decide: A Timeless Guide to Making Tough Choices, the No. 1 new historical reference book on Amazon.
If you want employees to adopt generative AI, put them in a room, give them real data, and require working demos by the end of the sprint.
The fastest path is a hands-on build workshop where small teams ship functional agents on a tight clock, present 5-minute demos to executive judges, and leave with a shortlist of pilots. Publish a simple internal schedule, pre-load a sandbox with governed datasets, and staff expert coaches who can unblock teams in the moment. That is how you convert interest into capability and capability into measurable outcomes. Then point your builders at a credible pattern from the field and make it your own.
The American Society for Nondestructive Testing ran exactly this kind of experience at its 2025 annual conference in Orlando. The dedicated session description outlined the 2-day build-and-compete format, inviting participants to create custom agents to solve nondestructive testing problems and face peer judging.
For them, the contest produced more than applause. It created credible use cases that practitioners and sponsors could carry back to plants, labs, and job sites. That is the kind of narrative your company needs when you ask leaders to fund pilots and harden prototypes.
ASNT primed the pump before the in-person contest. A public webinar on AI agents in NDT introduced patterns, build steps, and governance expectations, lowering activation energy for first-time builders. The conference schedule also included adjacent AI-focused sessions, such as an applied automation talk that reinforced practical workflows. Event coverage published 2 weeks after the conference highlighted the AI Agent Battle as one of the week’s memorable moments and noted the broader momentum around AI, data, and demos.
The structure mattered. Attendees did not sit through long lectures. Instead, they built agents tied to real inspection tasks, iterated publicly, and delivered results by a deadline. That format aligns with strong evidence that active learning outperforms lecture-first instruction, including a well-cited meta-analysis that found higher performance and lower failure rates when learners engage directly with problems. Reviews of project-based learning show similar gains, as documented in a recent higher-education review and a science-education meta-analysis. Research on hackathon-style builds also indicates improved teamwork, problem-solving, and persistence when the event is time-bounded and well-coached, as summarized in a 2024 systematic review and a complementary educational evaluation.
As ASNT COO Barry Schieferstein noted after the event: “I was struck by how the AI Agent Challenge transformed what a conference experience can be. Instead of talking about innovation, our members were building it, creating real AI agents that connect directly to nondestructive testing practice. For ASNT, this was more than a workshop; it was a statement about how associations can lead their industries into the future. We proved that hands-on, coached learning not only transfers skills faster but also creates deeper engagement for members and sponsors alike. It showed that associations can be at the forefront of applied technology, not just in what we teach but in how we learn together.”
Editor’s Note: This is part of an ongoing series examining generative AI and its continuing impact on the business world.
Require working demos that reduce cycle time or error rate on real work, not simulated tasks. Borrow the visibility play from ASNT’s public agenda and publish an internal schedule that names the competition, sets start and end times, and defines judging criteria that reward measurable improvement. Anchor the event in a recognizable venue and invite decision-makers to the demo window so they can witness the bar you are setting.
Offer a ninety-minute orientation one week before the sprint, just as ASNT primed builders with its preparatory webinar. In that session, showcase 3 agent patterns your teams actually need, such as a compliance report generator, a decision-support method selector, or a frontline equipment advisor. Provide a sandbox that mirrors production constraints. Seed it with governed, redacted, or synthetic datasets. Staff an expert facilitator to unblock integration, data access, and model routing. Active learning evidence shows that guided practice beats passive content because people learn while doing the work they will repeat at their desks.
Give the program a name, define the publishing rules, and state the deliverables up front. Require three artifacts from every team by the final bell: a one-paragraph problem statement, a must-have capability checklist, and a data plan that names sources and permissions. Record the five-minute demos and publish them on an internal portal that mirrors the discoverability of ASNT’s events hub. Tag entries by workflow and data domain. Provide a short, standardized request form for productionization. Commit to a two-week window to stand up the top prototypes as controlled pilots.
ASNT’s competition sat in a larger marketplace of talks and exhibits. You can replicate the effect by designating a small number of integration slots for ecosystem tools under strict governance. Publish neutral judging criteria, cap the number of slots, and require that all demos show the problem, the workflow, and the measurable result. When stakeholders experience tools within credible workflows rather than slide decks, behaviors change and pipelines form.
Use the sprint to surface data dependencies, security risks, and monitoring needs while momentum runs high. Ask every team to submit a one-page risk register with owners and mitigation steps. Establish a lightweight review process to approve the top prototypes for limited pilots. Tie your next quarterly build to refreshed business priorities and begin with quick updates from prior winners that show movement on cycle time, defect rates, or satisfaction. Over time, you will accumulate a library of approved, reusable agents and a standing competition that sources the next set of candidates.
Track participation rates, number of working demos, percentage of demos promoted to pilots, and time from demo to production. Compare agent outcomes against baselines for throughput, quality, and cost. Publish those deltas alongside the demo videos on your internal portal. When leaders see tangible improvements and a consistent pipeline of vetted agents, the investment conversation gets easier. The ASNT model shows that clarity of framing, hands-on execution, and public visibility drive adoption. Your adaptation turns that energy into durable capability inside the business.
Run a focused build where employees ship real agents, present fast demos, and leave with pilot candidates. Use ASNT’s Battle of the AI Agents as a pattern. Combine that playbook with what the active learning research and hackathon reviews already tell us about time-boxed, coached builds. Leaders who adapt this model will not leave with slide decks. They will leave with demos, data plans, and a repeatable engine that turns education into deployment and deployment into measurable revenue.
The information and opinions presented are the author’s own and not those of Vistage Worldwide, Inc.
Every business wants an elite team. But Pete Wilkinson, strategy execution consultant and speaker, knows that wanting one and actually building one are often two very different realities.
“It’s like saying ‘I’d love to compete in the Olympics,’” he says. “The reality is, you’ve got to be prepared to dedicate every hour of your life to it for about 15 years. It’s the same principle for building elite teams. You’ve got the be prepared to put the work in.”
Pete has spent his career helping ambitious scale-ups transform how they execute strategy, working with businesses ranging from 30-person startups to global enterprises. And he’s seen first-hand why so many leadership teams struggle to move from good to great. They want the high performance, the competitive edge, and the culture of excellence, but they still need to make the polar decision to commit to the work it takes to get there.
We caught up with Pete ahead of his Vistage masterclass on 25th March on building, leading, and developing elite teams to find out what leaders get wrong and what they need to do differently. Sign up for the session here.
What actually separates elite teams from simply good ones? It all comes down to consistency. “The big thing is that you’re consistent,” Pete says. “I always talk about four power habits that the very best people display: focus, personal organisation, being proactive and self-discipline.”
But beyond individual habits, elite teams have cracked something fundamental: they’ve found a simple way to set and cascade goals, and they’ve created alignment across the entire organisation. “The teams that we would class as elite have found a way to deliver the basics really well. People know exactly what they should be doing and how it’s impacting the business,” Pete explains.
They also develop a certain mindset that Pete calls “the pursuit of excellence.”
“They’re not just saying, ‘We’re good, and we’re staying here.’ They’ve got that mindset of, ‘We want to be better tomorrow than we are today.’ When that mindset cascades from the leadership team to the management team to the frontline, that’s when real differentiation happens.
Once you’ve made the commitment, Pete breaks the journey to building an elite team into three key stages. First comes building. “This first step is about establishing your starting point,” Pete explains. “Do you have the right people already? Do you need to bring some new people in? Do they need training?”
Next comes leading. Elite teams don’t wing it. They have systems and processes that ensure consistency, even when motivation dips. “What are the basics in sales? In marketing, operations, HR, or finance? Are you making sure they’re being done day in and day out, whether you want to or not?”
Lastly, ongoing development. “The third thing is cultivating that ‘pursuit-of-excellence’ mindset. It’s people wanting to be better on Wednesday than they were on Tuesday,” Pete explains. “A lot of that is about building a culture where everyone’s open to having those challenging conversations about how they can improve.”
Building an elite team is a big commitment not to be taken lightly. How do you keep yourself and your teams motivated for the long haul? Pete’s answer is simple but powerful: Focus on celebrating the gap between where you are now and where you were before, rather than scrutinising the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
“It’s that switch from saying, ‘We’re doing two million, but we want to do 10 million,’ to instead saying, ‘We’re doing two million now, but when we started a year ago, we were doing 100 grand. Look how far we’ve come,’” he explains.
Celebrating progress, not just potential, is what keeps teams energised for the long haul. Pete also emphasises the power of recognition. “If you want to motivate someone, catch them doing something well and tell them about it straight away. A genuine thank you always works well. It also doesn’t hurt to know your team’s favourite snacks,” he laughs.
Wanting an elite team isn’t enough. You have to decide to build one. And then you have to do the work.
“It’s going to be bloody hard,” Pete concludes. “But the performance and outcome that an elite team can deliver is staggering. And if you connect to the outcome rather than the act of building a team, that’ll keep you going.”
Coming up on the 25th March, Pete’s masterclass will walk attendees through a framework for building, leading, and developing elite teams.
Pete Wilkinson Vistage Climb Webinar: Sign up for his session here.
High-performing leaders often face a paradox: the same relentless drive that builds a thriving company can quietly weaken the foundation beneath it. For CEOs of small and midsize businesses, the tension between growth and sustainability isn’t theoretical; it’s the daily reality of leading through uncertainty, limited resources, and the constant pressure to do more with less.
In honor of Black History Month, we’re sharing 3 case studies featuring Black Vistage CEO members whose leadership journeys offer powerful lessons in resilience, clarity, and sustainable performance. Each faced a defining moment that forced them to rethink not only their business strategy but also their leadership approach.
Dr. Anton Bizzell realized he was treating symptoms rather than solving root problems — first in medicine, then in how he built his company. Rosalyn Merrick stepped into leadership during the pandemic, when her building emptied overnight and her team scattered. Ola Sage lost significant revenue in just 3 months while already running on fumes.
What connects their stories is a counterintuitive truth. Rather than intensity, sustainable high performance comes from leading with clarity, discipline, and intention. Their frameworks offer practical, time-tested answers to the questions CEOs wrestle with most, and a clearer path forward when the pressure feels endless.
Dr. Anton Bizzell | Vistage Impact Award Winner
President & CEO, Bizzell US
Hyattsville, Maryland
Vistage member since 2022
When Dr. Anton Bizzell, CEO of Bizzell US, treated patients at Howard University, he noticed a troubling pattern. Patients returned repeatedly with manageable conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and asthma, but the root causes remained unaddressed.
“I realized I was treating the symptoms of broken systems rather than the root causes of illness,” he recalls. This insight sparked his transition from physician to entrepreneur, founding a consulting firm focused on health education and the social determinants of health.
Today, Dr. Bizzell leads a thriving organization that operates globally, from supporting STEM programs for K-12 students to installing freshwater systems in impoverished African communities. His journey from bedside to boardroom offers a masterclass in building resilient, high-performance organizations.
Dr. Bizzell’s medical training shaped his leadership philosophy in unexpected ways. “In medicine, you’re trained to diagnose before you treat and understand systems before you intervene,” he explains. This disciplined approach prevents reactive decision-making and short-term fixes, two common pitfalls that derail many growing businesses.
When challenges arise, he resists the urge to intervene immediately. Instead, he asks 3 critical questions:
This framework has proven invaluable during crises such as pandemics, government shutdowns, and broader market turbulence. “Don’t abandon your structure in a crisis,” he advises. “Your structure matters most. Slow down your thinking, speed up your execution, but don’t confuse urgency with panic.”
Drawing on his experience, his most actionable advice for fellow CEOs is simple yet critical: build your systems before you think you need them. From the company’s inception, he established financial controls, human resources infrastructure, and clear accountability measures. “When you’re ready to scale up, if you don’t have those systems in place, it’s going to be noticeable,” he warns.
This principle extends to company culture, which Dr. Bizzell treats as an operating system rather than a slogan. He focuses on how decisions are made, how leaders behave when no one is watching and how to ensure clarity around performance, communication, and ownership.
Coming from an underserved community himself, Dr. Bizzell rejects the false choice between social impact and financial strength. “Just because you serve an underserved community doesn’t mean you’re going to lower your standards or sacrifice financial discipline,” he asserts. In fact, working in complex environments requires running a well-run organization to succeed.
“When you align your purpose with your performance, growth becomes a byproduct of doing meaningful work,” Dr. Bizzell notes. At its core, his approach to resilience is grounded in discipline, asking the same fundamental questions today as he did a decade ago. “Strategy isn’t about avoiding pain. It’s about choosing the right pain.”
Rosalyn Merrick | Vistage Leadership Award Winner
President & CEO, Atlanta Habitat for Humanity
Atlanta, Georgia
Vistage Member since 2022
When Rosalyn Merrick joined Atlanta Habitat for Humanity as chief development officer in November 2020, the offices were empty, staff were dispersed, and the organization’s heartbeat — its volunteers — were largely limited to virtual engagement.
In the proverbial eye of the storm, Rosalyn picked up the phone.
She spent her first months calling top contributors and volunteers, not to fundraise, but to listen. What she heard from the organization’s most loyal supporters changed her approach to leadership entirely. “I’ve been so lonely,” one told her. “It wasn’t until I couldn’t be there, building with Habitat, that I realized how much joy and fulfillment it gave me.”
Today, as CEO of “one of Habitat for Humanity’s leading affiliates by production and impact in its 900+ affiliate global network, Merrick leads with vulnerability to accelerate performance. She learned the value of vulnerability by necessity. During the pandemic, every business call began with check-ins and an emphasis on genuine human connection, revealing a profound lesson.
“We all were vulnerable because we didn’t know what else to be,” Rosalyn reflects. “It was such a humanizing moment that I try to carry that forward.”
That transparency proved to be a strategic advantage. When Atlanta Habitat needed to shift from primarily volunteer-led construction to a hybrid model that also incorporated construction staff and subcontractors, Rosalyn involved stakeholders in designing the solution. By seeking advice rather than announcing decisions, she fostered ownership among those who would execute the change.
Rosalyn’s path to the CEO seat also tested her resilience. She didn’t land the permanent role immediately, despite serving as interim CEO and competing in the formal selection process. Some expected her to leave. Instead, she stepped in as chief operating officer.
“I chose this work,” she recalls telling her staff. “I chose this team because I know how much this mission matters to all of us, and I know we can expand its impact, together.”
Leading one of Habitat for Humanity International’s largest independent affiliates while serving the Atlanta region with a focus on affordable homeownership means navigating constant pressure among funding opportunities, market trends, and stakeholder expectations—particularly in a rapidly changing housing market.
Rosalyn keeps focus through her crystal-clear vision that Atlanta Habitat centers its work on affordable homeownership as a pathway to stability and legacy.
That vision is more than aspirational for Rosalyn; it’s a decision-making filter. When opportunities arise, she asks, “How is this relevant to where we’re ultimately trying to go?”
For CEOs navigating uncertainty, Rosalyn suggests acknowledging the hard things out loud, involving people in solutions and staying ruthlessly focused on vision.
“Name what is stirring right now so we can deal with it and then deal with the real matter at hand,” she advises. That honesty creates speed, cutting through resistance to reach productive decisions faster.
Ola Sage | Vistage Chair since 2019
CEO, CyberRx
Silver Spring, Maryland
Joined Vistage in 2007
Ola Sage’s journey into entrepreneurship was unintentional. In 1999, her goal was simply to consult. But when her employer won a recompete for a major government contract and needed her to lead it, she suddenly found herself running a fledgling business with four employees, no business plan, and a steep learning curve.
“I was leading by fire,” she recalls. “Whatever needed to be done, I did it.” Working 7 days a week. Recruiting her brother to work with her. Learning as she went.
For high-performing CEOs like Sage, the warning signs of burnout often hide behind relentless drive and commitment. And in her case, they came to a head when her IT professional services company lost significant revenue in just 3 months due to government budget cuts, forcing her to cut 20% of her workforce almost overnight. The crisis demanded everything she had. The problem was, she’d already been giving everything she had for years.
That moment became a turning point for Sage, not just in how she ran her business, but in how she thought about leadership itself. Through self-study, joining Vistage, and building a network of peers, Sage developed a leadership philosophy centered on a deceptively simple question: What’s Important Now? The WIN framework, which Greg McKeown captured in his book, “Essentialism,” became foundational to her leadership approach.
“Sometimes what was important now was just getting through the day,” she says. “Sometimes it was creating a list of 20 action items and figuring out which 3 were absolutely essential. Sometimes it was taking a nap.”
This focus on the essentials extended beyond crisis management. Leading her first company, Sage tried to do everything from enterprise architecture to software development to network engineering. “Jack of all trades, master of none,” she reflects. But when she launched her second company, CyberRx, she deliberately chose to forgo other potential revenue streams and focus on excellence in one area, challenging her lifelong equation of quitting with failure.
Now, Ola operates from a place of “intention,” guided by clear questions. Am I meeting my standard of excellence? Am I sleeping well? Am I spending time with people who matter?
Today, she guides other leaders as a Vistage Chair of 3 executive groups and CEO of 2 businesses. But Sage says her greatest evolution has been internal. “I’ve transitioned from leader-coach to coach-leader. It’s less about me solving their problems and more about coaching them into how to do it themselves.”
As we kick off 2026, cyberattacks remain the single greatest threat to businesses and individuals. They can swiftly shut down a business, compromise its data, or drain a Bitcoin account in one fell swoop. And with the rapid adoption of AI, they are only gaining momentum.
In 2025, 4.3% of small- to midsize-business (SMB) CEOs who responded to a Vistage survey said their businesses had experienced a cyberattack resulting in data loss. Meanwhile, another 19% reported having attacks that did not end in a loss. And while roughly 23% (nearly a quarter) of SMBs experiencing a cybersecurity issue may not seem like a mass issue requiring immediate attention, the potential price tag of an attack is unignorable: IBM reports that data breaches hit an all-time high for U.S. businesses in 2026, costing an average of $10.22M.
Plus, separate research suggests that roughly 40% of cyber incidents go unreported, meaning the problem is even more widespread than what we see on paper. Cybersecurity remains a critical concern for businesses of all sizes and industries, and it is also a significant concern for CEOs on an individual level — their perceived wealth makes them a target for cybercriminals seeking their next victim.
Despite this clear and present danger, cyber readiness has remained relatively stagnant over the past 4+ years, with recent Vistage research showing that 15.5% of SMBs still lack a cyber strategy as we enter 2026. Nearly two in ten organizations are risking devastating impacts to their business each day.
And while, from a CEO’s perspective, the cyber landscape may not seem vastly different than 2020, the reality is it’s evolving rapidly. Artificial intelligence has quickly become the most powerful tool in every cybercriminal’s arsenal, drastically shifting the advantage to the attacker. Today, they can create high-quality phishing attacks at scale, effectively enabling them to industrialize cybercrime.
With the click of a button, they can scan businesses’ networks for vulnerabilities and deploy deep fake audio, visuals, and seamless e-mail impersonations of leaders and other people in positions of power – all at the speed of AI. These attacks are cheaper, faster, and more targeted. SMBs that were once too small to hunt are now easy targets, exposed to vulnerabilities and a lack of preparedness compared to enterprise organizations. Given how quickly technology is transforming, CEOs need to understand that their cyber strategy cannot be set and left on a shelf. New tactics are emerging overnight, rendering prior approaches obsolete.
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The following are a few best practices every CEO should keep in mind as they look to stay on top of their cyber preparedness in 2026 and beyond:
In general, you should always have a “doomsday bag” at the ready in case of a cyber-attack. This entails having an answer to the following question: if you were to lose your data in the next 30 seconds, what would you do in the 30 seconds that follow?
Many CEOs treat cyber as an IT department cost — they view it as part of the infrastructure and a lower priority because it is not a growth enabler. But put simply, it’s the unavoidable cost of doing business in the modern world. Like insurance, you don’t need a cyber strategy until you do — and in today’s AI-driven world, every company is one click away from data darkness.
This story first appeared in Inc.