Latest news with #HowardSchultz
Forbes
13-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Key Leadership Decision CEOs Don't Realize They're Making Daily
Self-leadership can't be overlooked. At Starbucks' recent Leadership Experience event in Las Vegas, current CEO Brian Niccol and founder Howard Schultz sat down before 14,000 company leaders to discuss the company's vision and principles. One of the most compelling ideas came from Schultz, who revisited a profound yet straightforward leadership principle: the "Two Chairs" concept. According to Schultz, every decision should serve both the customer and the partner, and if it fails to exceed expectations for either, it won't be executed. The magic of this principle lies in its simplicity. Both chairs matter, and both feed and support each other. And the same holds in leadership more broadly: you can't lead others effectively if you're not consistently tending to the twin pillars of leadership performance and well-being. While Schultz framed the Two Chairs concept for business decisions, it offers an even deeper insight when turned inward. It's not just a tool for external leadership. It's a framework for self-leadership. The Two Chairs Every CEO Balances In Leadership Every major leadership decision—from hiring and scaling to setting vision and execution—appears outward-facing. However, there's an equally important side of the equation that's often overlooked: self-leadership. Every high-level leader is sitting between two invisible chairs. One chair represents the relentless pressure to deliver through hitting growth targets, driving innovation, and meeting stakeholder expectations. The other symbolizes personal capacity, encompassing mental clarity, emotional steadiness, and overall well-being—all of which are essential to sustain that very performance. Most CEOs understandably default to the performance chair. It's where urgency lives. It's externally rewarded and immediately validated. But over-indexing on that chair comes at a cost. Neglecting the second chair—your capacity—may not create issues today, but over time, it can undermine everything. That internal chair supports your mental sharpness, creative thinking, executive presence, and the quality of your decision-making. When it weakens, so does your leadership. What Happens In Leadership When You Ignore The Second Chair The drift into imbalance isn't dramatic. It's subtle, so subtle that it often goes unnoticed. You can still meet your quarterly targets and attend meetings, appearing in control. But quietly, you begin drawing from a well that isn't being replenished. Leaders can justify it with phrases like "Just this quarter," "Just this deadline," or "I'll slow down after the launch." But burnout rarely hits like a crash. It instead accumulates like dust. The consequences appear as missed cues, slower decisions, emotional volatility, physical challenges, and diminished resilience under stress. By the time most CEOs notice the erosion, it's already showing up in their decisions, relationships, and performance. Operating from just one chair not only limits your capacity, but it also creates risk. Not just for you, but for your company and team as well, because when the leader's center collapses, everything around them begins to feel the impact. Leadership From The Center Leading from the center doesn't mean living a perfectly balanced life, as that's not realistic in high-stakes leadership. But it does mean designing your leadership to be durable. Just as the performance chair demands planning, metrics, and strategy, the capacity chair demands infrastructure. It requires protecting the assets that fuel your ability to perform, such as: Just as a business can't scale what it can't sustain, a leader can't deliver beyond the limits of their well-being. The Two Chairs In Leadership Are Here To Stay Just as the sun rises and falls, the two chairs in leadership will always remain. The nature of being a CEO inevitably creates a pull between business KPIs and personal well-being. But leadership at the highest level isn't about choosing one and ignoring the other. It's about building the awareness and infrastructure to lead from the space between. That means protecting your mental bandwidth, tending to your emotional world, and developing the internal resilience to carry the weight of your external responsibilities, without burning out beneath them.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Faces Doubts Nine Months Into Turnaround
Starbucks (SBUX, Financials) CEO Brian Niccol entered with high expectations; nine months in, the results remain lukewarm. The former Chipotle and Taco Bell chief promised a reset simplified menus, more staff, and a cozier cafe experience but investors are still waiting for a clear financial roadmap. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Sign with MSFT. Shares jumped 21% the day Niccol was named CEO in August 2024; since then, they've stalled. Same-store sales fell 1% last quarter the fifth straight decline and foot traffic has dipped every month this year compared to 2024, according to data reviewed by Reuters. Niccol says results will follow; he's accelerating staffing increases to all 10,000-plus company-owned U.S. stores this summer. But analysts are cautious; no earnings targets have been offered, and the stock trades at a forward P/E of 33 higher than McDonald's (MCD, Financials) or Yum Brands (YUM, Financials). TD Cowen downgraded the stock to Hold in May; AdvisorShares' Dan Ahrens said the fund is steering clear until the turnaround shows results. Bernstein estimates staffing plans could cost up to $2 billion over two years a hefty bet on retention and service speed. Critics say some changes cut against Starbucks' brand; unionized workers have protested new dress codes and policies requiring non-customers to pay for restrooms. Starbucks says those updates came after employee and customer input. Niccol still has backing from former CEO Howard Schultz; at a June event in Las Vegas, Schultz praised his successor and said he's never been more optimistic. The company has promised more clarity at an investor day in 2026; until then, Wall Street will be watching for signs that Niccol's third act can match his earlier hits. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
08-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Elon Musk isn't the first businessman who's tried to challenge America's two-party system
Elon Musk says he's launching a new party called the "America Party." It's not the first time a businessman has tried to challenge the two-party system. Others who've tried it — or considered it — include Andrew Yang, Howard Schultz, and Ross Perot. Disillusioned by both the Republican and Democratic parties, a prominent businessman says he's going to try something new and break up the two-party duopoly. This year, it's Elon Musk, who says he's forming the "America Party" after his political alliance with President Donald Trump ended in spectacular fashion. Four years ago, it was Andrew Yang. And a couple of years before that, it was former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. The two-party system has been a frequent target of American businessmen in recent decades. And yet, the two parties are still standing. Whether it's forming a third party, launching an independent presidential bid, or some combination of the two, Musk may want to study the paths of those who came before him. Here are three other prominent businessmen who've tried to challenge the two-party system. Andrew Yang founded the Forward Party in 2021 Before Yang entered politics, he was an entrepreneur, launching a number of initiatives including Venture for America. Yang ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, with his signature policy being a form of universal basic income that he called the "Freedom Dividend." He was even endorsed by Musk. He later ran for mayor of New York City in 2021, coming in 4th on the first round of voting at roughly 12%. Months later, he founded the "Forward Party," a centrist political party that prioritizes innovation, electoral reform, and a rejection of polarization. A handful of state-level elected officials have affiliated with the Forward Party, and the party has endorsed several members of Congress, including Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah and Democratic Rep. April McClain Delaney of Maryland. Yang has been supportive of Musk's nascent efforts to form a new political party. "Anyone who wants to bust up the duopoly has the right idea," Yang wrote on X on Sunday. He also told POLITICO in June that he'd reached out to Musk about joining forces, though he hadn't heard back. "I don't have to agree with everyone's past decisions in order to agree that the primary mission has to be getting our political system back in a place where it's actually responsive to both the views and the needs of the American people," Yang told the outlet. "Right now, we don't have that." Howard Schultz flirted with an independent 2020 presidential bid Howard Schultz, the billionaire former CEO of Starbucks, explored a run for president as a centrist independent for almost a year in 2019. While Schultz was mostly aligned with Democrats on the issues, he said at the time that he feared that the party was drifting too far to the left on economics and the role of government. Early on in 2019, he acknowledged that there was a math problem, and many were concerned that his bid would draw support away from the Democratic nominee and help reelect Trump. He ultimately decided against it in September 2019, writing in a letter to supporters: "My belief in the need to reform our two-party system has not wavered, but I have concluded that an independent campaign for the White House is not how I can best serve our country at this time." Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992 and as part of the 'Reform Party' in 1996 Ross Perot, a billionaire businessman from Texas, was the most successful third-party presidential candidate in recent American history. He ran in both 1992 and 1996, both times on a populist platform of eliminating the budget deficit, opposing certain free trade deals, enacting term limits, and pursuing campaign finance reform. In 1992, he ran as an independent candidate, capturing almost 19% of the vote as Bill Clinton defeated President George H.W. Bush. In 1996, he ran as the nominee of the "Reform Party," which he founded the previous year to support his political movement. That year, he garnered just 8.4% of the vote. The Reform Party ultimately outlasted Perot's political career. Jesse Ventura won the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election as the party's nominee, and Trump even considered seeking the party's nomination in 2000.
Irish Times
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
It's not often world leaders display personal frailties the way Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer did
A chancellor in tears. A prime minister talking openly about the great pressures of his job. It is hard to think of another time when two top leaders of a G7 country put their personal frailties on display in the way the UK's Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer did this week. Reeves did so unwillingly, in the painful glare of the House of Commons , where she struggled to contain her all too visible distress over something that, at the time of writing, remains a mystery. Starmer was more controlled, telling weekend newspaper interviewers his recent bouts of political havoc came as he was facing the firebombing of his London family home , Iran missile strikes and a G7 meeting in Canada within days of a Nato summit in The Hague . Both cases say much about our complicated and often contradictory responses to a leader who shows vulnerability. READ MORE It has long been conventional wisdom that a boss who is prepared to reveal fear, uncertainty or some other form of uselessness is in luck. It's thought they will be more trusted and respected, especially by younger staff who are said to yearn for 'authenticity', and are therefore more valuable to an organisation. It helps that some of the world's best known corporate leaders have endorsed this idea. 'I think one of the perhaps most undervalued characteristics of leadership is vulnerability and asking for help,' former Starbucks boss Howard Schultz told an interviewer in 2017. When former Expedia chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, left the travel group to run Uber , he was lauded for telling Expedia staff he was 'scared' about making the move. There is indeed research suggesting it pays to impart inner wobbles. Yet if it really were obvious, why does the evidence suggest relatively few leaders are willing to own up to any form of weakness? When author Jacob Morgan surveyed 14,000 employees around the world for his 2023 book Leading With Vulnerability, he asked how many of their bosses showed the qualities of a vulnerable leader. Only 16 per cent said their leaders had done anything like asking for help, admitting to mucking up or revealing genuine feelings. I suspect this is because, as with so much else in working life, context is all. There are times when a leader who reveals any form of feebleness will be penalised, like Starmer has been this week. As a BBC interviewer asked one of the prime minister's allies on Wednesday: 'Don't you think he's coming across as terribly weak?' Starmer's problem was timing. Signs of vulnerability can look like damage control, or an excuse, if they come after a leader is already in trouble rather than before. Chief executives who ignore this lesson risk being less appealing to investors, according to a recent paper by academics in the United States. They did a series of experiments to see how people reacted after reading an interview with a fictional tech chief executive before an earnings forecast. In some interviews, the CEO said that although he was good at public speaking: 'When I make a speech, I frequently get nervous – my mouth gets dry, and my hands get sweaty.' In others, he said: 'I'm good at public speaking, and when I make a speech I'm never nervous.' It turned out that if the more vulnerable version of the CEO issued good financial news, people were more inclined to find the forecast credible and rate the company an attractive investment. [ 'Worst of any prime minister': Ten moments that defined Labour's first year in power in the UK Opens in new window ] If he had bad news, it went down badly. But the response was softened if the CEO appeared more vulnerable. Crucially, this softer reaction only came when the boss showed signs of vulnerability before the bad news, not afterwards. This makes sense, and I suspect it explains at least part of the reaction to Starmer this week. Things are more complicated when it comes to Reeves, and not just because there was an actual market sell-off after Starmer initially failed to back his tearful chancellor, prompting investor fears she would be sacked. Her wrenching display of distress also came after the bad news of a party rebellion over reforms she had strongly backed. But no one witnessing the harrowing images of her anguish could imagine they were anything but genuine. We live in an age when emotional honesty is rare and valued, even if, as Reeves has shown, it can also be jolting to watch. – Copyright the Financial Times Limited 2025 How the wealthy are buying up land to avoid inheritance tax Listen | 22:03
Daily Mail
24-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
NFL insider Jordan Schultz leaves Fox Sports in shock career move
Fox Sports have parted ways with NFL insider Jordan Schultz after only one season, it has emerged. Schultz, the son of billionaire ex-Starbucks CEO mogul Howard Schultz, has broken a host of stories over recent years including Rob Gronkowski 's retirement and new deals for Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. He also hosted an NFL podcast with NBA star Draymond Green but now, as revealed by the Washington Post, Schultz has left Fox Sports. 'He's no longer on our air,' a Fox spokesman told the outlet. It comes a few months after he and NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport clashed inside a Starbucks at the NFL combine in Indianapolis. Schultz also reportedly landed himself in hot water over the draft, when the NFL contacted Fox after the reporter revealed teams' picks before they were announced. Media partners are banned from tipping selections. Schultz later ruffled feathers inside Fox after breaking the news about a game being broadcast on the network before an agreed-upon time. NFL Network's Ian Rapoport was reportedly accosted by Schultz at the 2025 NFL Combine It's claimed that the NFL insider irked fellow reporters, with one telling the Washington Post that 'Jordan is Saudi-wealth-funding the insider game. He's doing what LIV did to golf.' Schultz told the Washington Post that his Fox deal was only for a year and that he intended to leave anyway. He claims to be in negotiations with several outlets but is also pondering creating his own media organization. Back at the NFL Combine, security were called after Schultz and Rapoport had an X-rated 'verbal confrontation' in Indianapolis. Schultz claims to have been told that Rapoport had been accusing him of offering stocks in Starbucks or Uber in exchange for information. 'Total blasphemy, dumb, unfounded — and yet very damaging,' he told the Washington Post. So he confronted Rapoport and reportedly said: 'You know what you did. And I said, "This has got to stop." And I was very clear, if you have a problem with me, just talk to me.' In a statement, Rapoport told the outlet: 'I hadn't heard that Jordan was accused of offering Uber stock as an incentive for scoops until he was screaming in my face at the now-infamous Starbucks.'
