Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space there is the power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and freedom. - Victor Frankl

As we turn the page into 2026, we’re carrying with us several reflections about what it means to build a company focused on transforming the way we work.  Unsurprisingly, we’ve learned as much about ourselves as leaders as we have about the work itself. One of our founding values at ManagerEQ has always been to preach what we practice. This year gave us plenty of opportunities to live into that commitment.

At our core, ManagerEQ is built on a simple but powerful belief: leaders can grow their emotional intelligence through better habits, and when they do, they create better conditions for the people they lead. This isn’t just a moral imperative. It’s a business one. Better leadership habits lead to better outcomes for individuals, teams, and organizations alike.

Another value that guided us this year is operating as a learning lab, workplace scientists, if you will, paying close attention to the gap between what we observe and how we choose to respond.  That mindset has shaped everything from how quickly we’ve iterated on new ideas to how we’ve practiced navigating conflict and tension in healthy, productive ways. The same dynamics we help our clients work through show up on our own team, too. That muscle, the ability to pause, hypothesize, observe, and then choose, has been built slowly and intentionally. And it’s one we believe every leader deserves the chance to strengthen.

One of our most striking reflections this year is how little conversation there is about an aspirational future of work.  There’s no shortage of articles documenting burned out managers or speculating about the threats AI poses to the workforce.  But where is the bold vision for the role managers can play in stewarding this next chapter of work? Who is naming what could be possible?  That’s where ManagerEQ comes in.  

This past week during our team retreat we looked back our original conception of the core problem: the way we work isn’t working, and we believe that managers are a key lever.  We returned to the early days of sketching ideas across whiteboards, debating language, and connecting dots between our lived experiences, the history of work, and the possibilities ahead. That reflection reignited the same excitement that fueled us from the start.

For years, our work has been about gently but persistently challenging the idea that the status quo works for everyone. Through change management and leadership development, we’ve uncovered systemic barriers that hold organizations back, whether they show up as performance gaps or broken employee experiences. We’ve seen firsthand how democratizing data empowers people to own their growth, and how recognizing patterns—both helpful and harmful—can accelerate progress.

Eventually, the question became clear: how do we help more leaders do this work for themselves?

We’d always believed that the training and coaching work we provided were complimentary, but there was an ongoing element missing: a self-directed habit forming component to truly engineer behavior change at a larger scale.  Out of this, ManagerEQ was born.  

And now, a year later we have plenty to show for our efforts.  

We’ve launched a game changing platform. On December 1, we officially released the first version of the ManagerEQ platform—something that’s been years in the making.  And this is just the beginning.  

We are sharing our story broadly. This isn’t simply the story of ManagerEQ, but really it’s the story of how we work, and what we’re learning about how work can be transformed.  This year we had the opportunity to pitch ManagerEQ on the international stage at Web Summit Lisbon, in Atlanta through the LIFT Incubator, and with a group of Spelhouse investors. We’re looking forward to sharing more stages in 2026.  

We’re building capacity for what’s next. Alongside our participation in the LIFT Incubator this year, we were selected for Emory’s Techstars Founder Catalyst Program for 2026—a meaningful vote of confidence as we enter our next phase of growth.

Like any journey, ours has been made worthwhile by the people walking alongside us.  We’re so grateful for our partners, friends, and early adopters and we’re excited for what’s to come.  Here’s to choosing growth and to building a future of work that actually works.