Matthew Kohut

whether you're going to weigh in on it or not.

And I think there are times where strategic silence is the right way to go and say, this is not in our lane.

We're focused on, here's our mission.

And there are other times when you absolutely have to say to people, you know what?

I hear you about this.

We've got your back.

I do think it's really all about the... I mean, you have to be about the business first when you're a corporate leader.

I don't think there's any other way around that.

You can have strong feelings about something, but you have to be thinking about... I mean, we're talking about Fortune 500, Fortune 100.

These are companies that have shareholders and they have a...

fiduciary duty to the shareholders.

So you can't ever walk away from thinking that way.

At the same time, I'll give you an example from not too distant history where we had the CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods after the mass shooting at Marjory Stone in high school back in 2017 or 2018.

They were not going to be carrying these kind of rifles anymore.

And that was a deeply felt personal belief that was gonna have an effect on sales, an effect on the stock price, but he was gonna sleep better knowing that he wasn't helping to make that kind of thing happen again.

And so I think you can find examples all over the map of leaders who clearly would have steered clear of an issue like that that was gonna have a detrimental effect on the business, and leaders who thought, you know what, every now and then,

You actually just need to plant your feet and take the stand and take the hit.

Well, I think that we mentioned one of them first, which is if you're the leader and you're thinking, do I say something?

You do have to listen.

So let's say it's your employees.