Great leaders don't just lead well, they know exactly where they're stuck
Most leadership advice pushes you to do more: More clarity.More delegation.More velocity. But doing more doesn’t help when you’re solving the wrong problem. You don’t need more output. You need a better diagnosis. Great leaders don’t just lead well. They know exactly where they’re stuck. That’s what makes forward movement possible. It took me months to […]
November 15, 2025·Andrea Michalek
The Opposite of More
High performers are wired for more. More goals. More progress. More achievement. It’s a part of our DNA. But, I have learned the hard way, that more for the sake of more isn’t the goal. You see it all the time. Someone who, from the outside, looks to be at the peak of success. Yet […]
October 25, 2025·Andrea Michalek
The Professional Autopilot Trap
Autopilot doesn’t look like failure. It looks like plateaued growth, endless meetings, and a calendar so full of escalations you can’t remember the last time you shaped the market instead of reacting to it. You’re not broken.You’re not failing.You’re not even underperforming. You’re hitting quarterly targets.Your team respects you.Stakeholders know they can count on you. […]
August 30, 2025·Andrea Michalek
The hidden stage of leadership no one warns you about
Most senior product leaders are one promotion away from losing the passion that made them successful. In over 100 leadership coaching sessions, I’ve seen the same shift: more meetings, less making. Here’s how to break that cycle. When I was a first-time founder learning about venture capital, I dove into pre-money and post-money valuations, cap […]
August 9, 2025·Andrea Michalek
What cancer and a brain injury taught me about true leadership
I’ve told the story of founding Plum Analytics many times, but I rarely mention what happened three weeks after I started the company: my father was diagnosed with cancer. We had started Plum Analytics based on what we thought our target customers wanted: better metrics for research evaluation. We began with a market opportunity, a business […]
June 29, 2025·Andrea Michalek
After life throws a curve ball, what's next?
We set goals to move forward. But what happens when life derails our plans overnight? Everyone knows about setting goals. We set them at work, at home, and in the organizations we support. Goals give us direction. They define success and help us measure progress. And there’s another practice I’ve found equally powerful: setting daily intentions. […]
February 8, 2025·Andrea Michalek
My Waterfall Moment: A Story of Strength and Rediscovery
Do you have a photo that takes you back to the exact moment your life shifted? The kind of moment that showed you strength you didn’t know you had? For me, it is a picture of a waterfall. I keep this photo on the wall above my desk, and to most, it probably just looks […]
January 18, 2025·Andrea Michalek
Is your Product Lovable Enough?
Are you striving to create products that truly resonate with your users? What happens when you decide to build a product not for market validation, but to share something that brings you joy? That’s exactly what happened to me when I was sick with a cold. I was just sick enough to not want to […]
November 18, 2024·Andrea Michalek
It's more than leading authentically…
Are you looking for a way to maximize your team's impact? It's not just the charisma of leadership. It's also the grind of management. You need both for team success. 🌛 The world craves authentic leadership. But what’s leadership without its other half: management? It is vision without execution. It is like dreaming of climbing […]
February 5, 2024·Andrea Michalek
Feeling burnout creeping in? Don't buckle down or back away, try a different approach.
This week, while I was on a coaching call, the topic of burnout was front and center. Looking back at my career, with the clarity of hindsight, the factors that both got me to that point, what helped, what didn't, and what I have learned are so much more apparent than when I was facing […]
January 24, 2024·Andrea Michalek
What was your wake up call?
I want to talk about those events that wake you up and make you reconsider your path. For me, it started 5 years ago. Sometimes your drive to do what is right for "the business" comes first. You put it before your free time, your leisure time, and your mind is always racing. Some mornings, […]
December 5, 2023·Andrea Michalek
How storytelling can help you connect and lead
A common question I get is… What is the most important skill a leader should improve? Storytelling is, or should be, on the top of every leader’s list. As a leader, your ability to tell a story can be the difference between inspiring your team to achieve great outcomes or leaving them uninspired and unmotivated. […]
July 13, 2023·Andrea Michalek