What Makes Relationships Endure?
Banner image caption: Mike Leonard creating a story with baseball legend Ernie Banks
As we kick off 2026, we want to start where all sustainable leadership and meaningful relationships begin . . . with caring.
In our work with teams and leaders, this one Guiding Principle stands out as essential to trust, engagement, and long-term success. Caring shows up as empathy, respect, love, and compassion. It is not a soft value; it is foundational. Caring is woven into our human DNA; we are wired to connect, belong, and thrive in the presence of those who genuinely care about us.
When caring is present, relationships deepen. When it is absent, even the most talented teams eventually fracture.
Few people have illustrated the power of caring as beautifully and consistently as Mike Leonard, who was an NBC News correspondent until his retirement in 2012. Over more than 1,000 segments on the TODAY Show, Mike built a career by spotlighting everyday people whose quiet compassion changed lives. His gift has always been the same: helping us see what truly matters by telling stories that restore our faith in humanity.
The short piece we are sharing today is exemplary. In it, he explores how caring may be not only a moral virtue but also an evolutionary necessity, perhaps the defining strength of the human spirit. It reminds us that long before strategy, metrics, or performance systems, survival depended on our ability to care for one another.
For all of us, especially leaders, the lesson is simple yet profound:
Caring is not optional. It is essential.
When leaders demonstrate genuine care, they create environments where people feel seen, valued, and safe enough to bring their best selves to work. Trust grows. Collaboration strengthens. Performance improves. Over time, cultures rooted in caring outlast those driven solely by fear, ego, or short-term results.
I hope this story resonates with you as deeply as it did with me and encourages you to reflect on how caring shows up in your leadership, relationships, and life.
Holding On – by Mike Leonard
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
In the early autumn of 2001, just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I was looking for a story that would properly reflect our collective yearning for strength, inspiration, and hope.
Then someone told me about a pair of runners training for the Chicago Marathon, and I instantly knew that the subsequent narrative would resonate.
But first, some background on the evolution of social bonding.
Fossil and genetic evidence suggests that 300,000 years ago, our earliest African ancestors lived as hunter gatherers, probably in roving groups of between 20 and 50 people.
Everybody in the tribe knew each other. Their lives depended on cooperation and sharing. There were no kings, chiefs, priests, or official hierarchy. Leadership was informal and based on knowledge or skill. Conflict resolution was essential to survival.
Continual bad behavior resulted in banishment. Early humans would not have survived as a species without the development of traits favoring empathy and cooperation—thus the opening quote, said to be of African origin.
That lifestyle persisted until about 12,000 years ago when somebody in the Middle East invented agriculture. The idea spread around the globe. People no longer had to roam for food. Towns emerged, then cities filled with thousands of individuals, good and bad. Oversight diminished. Malevolent types could literally get away with murder. Somehow, through the ages, the empathetic gene endured in most humans, generally keeping mayhem under control unless a crazed leader tilted the playing field in a corrupt, autocratic, and ultimately murderous direction. Then all hell would break loose, and it still does.
It’s a constant tug of war, those with good intentions holding on a by a thread . . . or in this story of two runners . . . by a shoestring.
Ann Martino was an experienced runner, hoping to complete the Chicago Marathon in a respectable time. Then she heard about Tim Paul, a blind man wondering if he had the stamina to go the 26.2 mile distance. They met and agreed to run together, each holding one end of a shoelace.
The race was scheduled for October 7, 2001—just three-and-a-half weeks after the twin towers came down. It was one of the first international sporting events to take place in the aftermath of the horrifically violent act.
The human spirit was aching for a lift. Good needed to triumph. And it did.
Video version of “Holding On” by Mike Leonard
Closing Reflection Questions
- When do people most experience genuine caring from me—and when might they experience distance instead?
- How does caring consistently show up in the way we make decisions, handle conflict, and respond under pressure?
- If someone new joined our team tomorrow, what evidence would they see that caring is a true Guiding Principle here?
As we begin this new year, may caring guide how we lead, how we listen, and how we show up for one another.