#019 - Leadership Before Crisis, Cutting Next Leaders, and The AI Leaving Us Lonely

There are things you cannot build when the pressure hits. Leadership in a crisis, a team with real depth, people you actually trust. You build all of it before, while everything is calm and no one is watching.This episode is about that. Three themes, one thread: what the rush of the short term quietly destroys. And I hold myself to this too.The 7 Cs of crisis leadership. People who get through a crisis are not braver. They grew in seven areas before it hit. MIT Sloan research that interviewed a former prime minister, CEOs, and a chief of defense.Cutting the entry-level job today. The panic that AI killed the junior role is wrong: among companies using AI, 46% increased junior hiring, against 13% who cut it. The real risk is slower. Hand the junior role to the machine and you break your own leadership pipeline.The AI that leaves us alone. Harvard Business Review surveyed 1,545 professionals. More than half feel lonely at work, even while using AI for advice and support.The question that stays: what are you building today, with no immediate return, that will hold you up on a day that has not come yet?Meller Notes is here, curating content on career, leadership, and management for your personal and professional development.Sources:MIT Sloan, "Level Up Your Crisis Management Skills" (Aalbers, McCarthy, Groen, Mar 2026): https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/level-up-your-crisis-management-skills/Strada Institute, "Entry-Level Hiring in the AI Era" (2026): https://www.strada.org/news-insights/entry-level-hiring-in-the-ai-era-what-employers-are-thinking-and-doingTeneo CEO survey (Business Insider via AOL, 2026): https://www.aol.com/news/ai-triggering-quiet-hiring-comeback-051521811.htmlMIT Sloan, leadership pipeline and entry-level roles (May 2026): https://sloanreview.mit.edu/topic/ai-machine-learning/Harvard Business Review, "Employees Are Relying on AI for Personal Support" (Hadley and Wright, May/Jun 2026): https://hbr.org/archive-toc/BR2603