I interviewed the CEOs of Reddit, Colgate-Palmolive, and 6 other top companies about leading for the long run. Here’s what they said

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

– President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Most leaders will tell you they play the long game, and it is one of those things that sounds right and costs nothing to say. What is harder, rarer, and worth talking about is what underpins their conviction.

Artemis II is a 50-year case study in exactly that. On April 1, four astronauts will board the Orion spacecraft and fly around the Moon in the first crewed lunar mission since 1972. The mission did not survive nine administrations on belief alone. It survived because enough people, across enough leadership transitions, kept building the structural conditions for it to continue even when the spotlight dimmed. Belief was necessary, but it was not sufficient. Tenacity kept it going.

I have been thinking about that distinction a lot lately, because the bets leaders are being asked to carry right now are genuinely long and genuinely uncertain. The timelines are not quarterly, the outcomes are not guaranteed, and the pressure to show results, or pivot, or at least announce something, is relentless.

The question I wanted to ask today’s leaders was not whether they have conviction, but what conviction looks like in practice when it is expensive and the outcome is uncertain and the easier path is right there in front of you. So I interviewed eight of them.* Here’s what they said:

Noel Wallace, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Colgate-Palmolive

“For over two centuries, we have been dedicated to oral care, and I’m incredibly proud that our Bright Smiles, Bright Futures program, which we launched in 1991, has now reached over 2 billion children and their families globally. By pairing our world-class science with this heartfelt mission, we are truly fulfilling our purpose to reimagine a healthier future for every family we touch, and that is a bet that has only gotten more meaningful with time.”

Ron Lockton, Chairman & CEO of Lockton

“Sixty years ago we made the long bet to remain an independent, privately held company. That decision grounded our competitive advantage in disciplined, long-term thinking and gives us the freedom to deliberately operate at lower margins, reinvesting the difference into our people, culture, specialized insurance solutions, and data-driven digital capabilities to deliver greater client value. This focus on client satisfaction over short-term profit rewards our Associates and fuels sustained, organic growth that continues to outperform our peers.”

Rob Barrow, CEO of Definium Therapeutics

“The U.S. is facing a profound and worsening mental health crisis, with current treatment options failing millions of people. Our big bet: to usher in a new era of psychiatry with the potential of lysergide tartrate, or LSD, which had its start in systematic research in the 1940s. Through the lens of modern science, our rigorous clinical trials are designed to explore and generate regulatory-grade evidence, and we believe we’re approaching a meaningful shift in what mental health treatment could look like. This will require deep education and collaboration across many stakeholders to create lasting change, but we’re excited and emboldened by the opportunity.”

Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit

“We made a long bet that communities, groups of people, would matter more than hashtags, which are just groups of things. People don’t just want to consume, they want to belong somewhere. It took some time, but that bet is aging pretty well.”

Hayden Brown, President & CEO of Upwork

“In 2023 we made a bet that went against the prevailing narrative: AI wouldn’t hollow out the market for human talent, it would supercharge demand for the best people. We rebuilt Upwork on that thesis. Today the fastest-growing segment on our platform is professionals who combine AI fluency with deeply human skills, like creativity, judgment and taste. The market is repricing this combination fast. We saw it coming. I didn’t expect it to move this quickly.”

Bill McDermott, Chairman & CEO of ServiceNow

“Empathy is the most durable competitive advantage there is, in any era, at any scale. My long bets have always been about people because early on I learned they are the soul of every great business. From owning my own deli as a teenage entrepreneur, to leading the fastest growing enterprise software company in the world, that truth is more important than ever in this AI revolution. There is no artificial intelligence without human intelligence. Empathy and the trust it builds in people will always be the ultimate human currency.”

Mike Keech, CEO of Liquid I.V.

“My biggest long bet was choosing to build Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier Sugar-free for real longevity rather than a quick win, which meant committing early to our core pillars of science, impact, and culture. We invested in new ingredients and our infrastructure that would take years to fully show their full value, but we believed the long game was worth it. And like anything built to last, the payoff comes when you look back and realize the foundation you laid is even stronger than it felt in the moment you were building it.”

Jack Khattar, President & CEO of Supernus Pharmaceuticals

“Two decades ago, we chose to invest in ourselves. We had to dream big and take big risks to get big results, transforming from a small, independent team into the full-fledged pharmaceutical company we are today. Throughout it all, we believed in our people and their ability to make it happen. Seeing our diverse portfolio deliver real-world results in Psychiatry and Parkinson’s is a powerful vindication of that journey, and I couldn’t be prouder to lead the team that made it all happen.”

My take

My big bet was that owned media would become central to the media mix of corporate storytelling. Back in 2009 at Starbucks, as confidence in media began to decline while interest in the people behind our business rose, we changed the structure of our newsroom and hired journalists, including a former broadcast anchor to lead, to do the internal reportage on the cultural fabric of the company to use as external stories. I carried that infrastructure through to Salesforce, then Google and to our own client counsel at Burson, as the rise of social and influencer relevance is the natural progression of this idea. The real bet was on humanizing our original content.

*Colgate-Palmolive, Lockton, Definium Therapeutics, Reddit, and Supernus Pharmaceuticals are clients of my company, Burson.