It’s often said that experience is the best teacher.

Over the past decade, I’ve had the privilege of sitting down with leaders who’ve fundamentally reshaped how we think about what is possible in business and beyond – from heads of state to Fortune 500 CEOs and Nobel laureates to Olympic champions.

These conversations go beyond your typical interview. I think of them as strategic excavations, digging into the decision-making frameworks, counterintuitive insights and battle-tested principles that separate exceptional leadership from the merely competent.

The goal is always translation: How do I convert these insights into immediate, actionable intelligence for my audience?

Holly Ransom interviewing former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary Hillary Clinton in January 2024

That was exactly my intention when I sat down with former Secretary Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton at PCMA Convening Leaders in January 2024. Between them, they’ve spent decades navigating some of the world’s most complex challenges, from international diplomacy and economic transformation to institutional reform and crisis leadership.

But for the CEOs in that room, this wasn’t about political theater. It was about extracting leadership lessons that transcend sectors – insights with the power to shift perspective, shape strategy and sharpen decision-making the moment those executives walked back into their boardrooms.

This October, I’ll be sitting down with Secretary Clinton once again, this time on Australian soil for The Hatchery’s Women UNLIMITED Leadership Summit.

Ahead of that, I’ve found myself returning to a few reflections from our last conversation – moments that have stuck with me and grown in relevance as I’ve watched leaders navigate rising fatigue, eroding trust and unprecedented uncertainty.

Three leadership lessons

Here are three such moments that continue to shape how I think about leadership at this time – and the kind of leadership we need more of.

ELITE DECISION-MAKING STARTS WITH PROTECTING YOUR ENERGY

When former Secretary Clinton and I discussed high-stakes decision-making, she brought up something that is often overlooked in leadership conversations: the exhaustion it can cause.

“Hard decision-making is exhausting. And I think a lot of people don’t recognize that,” she said.

Part of what led us down this path was something that struck me in her 2017 memoir, What Happened. She reflected on the delicate dance she did with exercise – especially while serving as Secretary of State – intentionally holding back on intensity because those energy reserves might be urgently needed later in the day for a high-stakes crisis or complex decision.

Her insight hits at something critical, because decision fatigue is a growing pressure point for today’s leaders and something that comes up routinely with executive leaders I work with. According to DDI’s ‘Global Leadership Forecast 2025’, 71 percent of leaders report increased stress, and over half are concerned about burnout.

But research suggests it’s not just workload causing the burnout. It’s the sheer volume of decisions. It’s the relentless demand to absorb complexity, make calls under pressure and switch gears constantly that drains our cognitive reserves.

Clinton’s solution was simple: “You have to keep yourself prepared so that you don’t get tired.”

And yes, that includes sleep. With a knowing glance toward her husband beside her, she joked: “I’m a big believer in sleep. I’ve given the sleep lecture millions of times, usually to deaf ears.”

It got a laugh – amplified by President Clinton’s dramatic eye-roll – but the message landed. And it landed harder because she doesn’t just say it – she lives it. Secretary Clinton’s stamina, presence and clarity on stage were proof.

This is a space I’ve worked in for years – supporting high-performing leaders and teams across sectors, from elite sport to executive boardrooms. And there’s a clear throughline: sustained performance isn’t just about time management, it’s about energy stewardship.

In elite sport, recovery isn’t a reward, it’s part of the plan. Athletes know their edge depends on it. The military trains in the same manner, using ‘Readying, Ready, Reset’ cycles to maintain clarity and decision-making under pressure.

But in business? We’ve turned exhaustion into a badge of honor. Hustle culture has glorified the grind. However, as AI increasingly handles transactional tasks, the work that remains – strategy, creativity and complex decision-making demands that we preserve our cognitive capacity, not deplete it.

The leaders who will thrive in this new era aren’t the ones burning the midnight oil. They’re the ones who treat their energy as a strategic asset – protecting it, planning for it and designing rhythms that support peak cognitive performance. Sleep becomes a force multiplier; recovery, a leadership tool.

DISAGREEMENT ISN’T DANGEROUS – SILENCE IS

When I asked the Clintons whether they’d ever seriously disagreed on leadership, the economy or anything substantial, President Clinton didn’t miss a beat: “Is the Pope Catholic?”

They went on to share how debate was encouraged in their household. Even their six-year-old daughter Chelsea got involved – playing political opponents at the kitchen table to sharpen arguments, stress-test perspectives and learn to listen to different views without getting defensive.

That story stayed with me, not just as a parenting insight (one I’ve returned to often since welcoming my first child last year), but as a powerful leadership lesson.

Because great leaders don’t discourage disagreement, they make space for it. They create the conditions for candor. They build the kind of psychological safety where tough questions can surface without fear of punishment, exclusion or political fallout.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of working with Harvard’s Amy Edmondson, whose research has transformed how we understand team performance. Her findings are clear: psychological safety is the single strongest predictor of high-performing teams.

And a critical part of that safety is when people know they can raise a concern or disagree without risking their credibility, their sense of belonging or their place at the table.

So here are two questions I’d invite every leader to ask themselves:

• Can your team respectfully challenge ideas – yours, each other’s, the status quo – without fear?

• How confident are you that if someone in your team held a different view, they’d express it?

Because disagreement isn’t the threat, unspoken disagreement is.

THE MINDSET FOR RIGHT NOW? OPTIMISM WITH EYES WIDE OPEN

As we wrapped our conversation, I asked Secretary Clinton what we need more of from leaders right now.

Her answer was inspired by her dear friend, mentor and fellow trailblazer, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, saying:

“I’m an optimist who worries a lot.”

I love that framing. It’s honest and it’s resilient. Because in an era defined by complexity and ambiguity, we need leaders who are both grounded and hopeful. Clear-eyed and courageous. Realistic, yet still optimistic.

Optimism, as the great Antarctic adventurer Ernest Shackleton described it, is ‘moral courage’: the ability to hold onto hope and act on it, especially when it would be easier not to.

The path ahead may be messy, but it’s ours to shape. And if we keep leading with that kind of belief, we won’t just weather the storm, we’ll build something better on the other side.

I’ll be back in conversation with Secretary Clinton this October, and I’m already looking forward to exploring new questions with her. Her leadership journey spans diplomacy, politics, public service and global advocacy and what makes the conversation so compelling is how candidly she shares the lessons, the complexities and the trade-offs behind the headlines. I can’t wait to see where the next conversation takes us.

Individual tickets and packages for the Women UNLIMITED Leadership Summits are now available to book. For more information and to secure your place, visit https://womenunlimited.co/

Opinions expressed by The CEO Magazine contributors are their own.