Cardinal Health Chief Information Officer Michelle Greene wants the company's technology leaders to be "forward-thinking and have a strong ability to collaborate" with other departments, saying, "I need people who can understand a problem and then point our technology teams in the right direction." When asked about her target culture for her IT organization, Greene gives a straightforward answer: always having each other's back and having a mindset of helping each other.

Container ships backlogged along California's coast have decreased to zero from 109 in January, while the cost of importing a container from China has dropped to $2,000 from $20,000. Activity at factories, freight yards, ports, railroads and warehouses that distribute products to clients is almost back to the pre-pandemic rate, indicating the supply chain has improved significantly during 2022.

Logistics and transportation companies can "take performance to the next level" by adopting self-driving trucks and using big data to generate real-time insights, writes Jurgen Drobesch, portfolio manager at KNAPP. Together, these technologies can mitigate labor shortages, meet changing customer demands and reduce costs, Drobesch writes.

The basic guideline "that it costs five times more to win a new customer than to keep a current one" is a reminder to companies to make the sometimes counterintuitive move of redirecting resources to loyal customers during economic turbulence, writes ChurnZero CEO You Mon Tsang. Certain steps can minimize customer churn, including engaging with at-risk customers and creating "repeatable solutions" to keep them.

Newsletters and social media are good platforms to connect with potential clients on a human level, says business development consultant Terry Rice in a five-minute video on generating leads without irritating prospects. "You want to be someone who's connected to them and cares about them in a genuine way," Rice notes.

Apologizing for a mistake builds a leader's credibility, deepens trust and relationships with the team and creates a culture of caring and accountability, writes Terri Klass. "Our colleagues will value our leadership if they feel we are willing to hold ourselves accountable for our actions and words," Klass writes.

Leaders can judge where they are at any given moment by asking this question: "Am I on my heels, standing still or leaning forward?" writes Steve McKee. Paradoxically, you may be in one or all three states at the same time in different areas of leadership, but McKee writes that it's important to find even the smallest way to move forward because "nobody will follow a leader who's standing still."