Why Liberal Leaders Will Get Us All Killed

Dear Liberal Leader,

The reality is that on the path towards a better, more perfect union of your values and how you integrate them, you cannot always be "nice." To be someone's hero, you are going to have to succumb to being someone's villain.

Good intentions aren’t good enough! Good intentions with no meaningful action is why only 33% of global employees say they are thriving, why a third of the US population has made a cuckold of two thirds of the US population, its legislators, and our constitution. And why despite your stated values you are going to comment below about your feelings being hurt by this post instead of doing any deep interrogation of your inaction.

For the season finale of Unlearning Live, we unpacked the contradictions of the “well-meaning liberal” — a figure first called out by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957 for being sympathetic to “all sides,” and therefore not truly committing to the work and daily practice of racial justice.

If you’re ready for an honest reckoning with what it takes to actually move the needle on equity — this is the conversation you don’t want to miss. Joined by my good friend Joel Fariss, social philosopher & Executive Director of The Holon Institute, and Ruchika T. Malhotra, inclusive leadership expert & author of Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success (coming out November 4, 2025) this conversation was equal parts hard as it was necessary.

As so often happens inside the live classroom, we were blessed during this recording to have a few community members come forward and ask/say the quiet part out loud. I am so very thankful for their honesty and courage, because they represent an archetype of so many of the liberal leaders I work with who are still struggling to put their values into action.

Learn from them, either by lesson or warning.