The Uncommon Executive

How To Handle Overly Confident And Combative Colleagues

What to do when you need something from a coworker who is overly confident, defensive, or simply hostile towards working with you.

Mar 15 • Yue Zhao

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How To Succeed In Performance Reviews When AI Holds The Pen

AI is influencing your performance evaluations. It is writing summaries, development plans, and creating distributions. Here's how to manage it and get…

Mar 5 • Yue Zhao

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February 2026

The Magic of AI Is Reducing Coordination Costs, Not Individual Productivity

Productivity improvements are just the first step. Tue unlock and transformational change with AI comes from rethinking your data infrastructure and…

Feb 26 • Yue Zhao

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To IC or Not To IC In the Age of AI

As AI Agents level up and companies face rising profitability expectations, where does this leave middle management?

Feb 19 • Yue Zhao

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Why One-Size-Fits-All Team Routines Fail At Senior Levels

I recently spoke on a Chief Product Officer panel with a former mentor and fellow CPO from Thumbtack, Phil Farhi.

Feb 6 • Yue Zhao

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January 2026

What Most People Miss About Getting Promoted

Make the business case for why now. Pitch your promotion broadly on why invest in expanding your scope, and not fund someone else's promotion.

Jan 29 • Yue Zhao

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The Power of Stepping Back

In a world obsessed with urgency and moving forward, sometimes the best action is taking a step back.

Jan 22 • Yue Zhao

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How To Lower Your Anxiety To Speaking Up And Sharing Ideas

Many leaders set the bar high for sharing a new idea. As a result, they fail to build influence and presence. Here's a different way to frame the goal…

Jan 15 • Yue Zhao

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December 2025

2025 Year In Review: Y2 of The Uncommon Executive

Learnings and interesting tidbits from year 2 of growing my portfolio career.

Dec 18, 2025 • Yue Zhao

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Visibility and Communication is The Job

Many of us just want to put our head down and do work. Sending updates feel like a chore. Businesses rely on collaboration to accomplish big goals, and…

Dec 11, 2025 • Yue Zhao

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Failure as a Feature, Not a Bug

How to leverage your imperfections to build resilient teams

Published on Perspectives • Dec 5, 2025

How To Ask for Support from Senior Leaders

How to take advantage when your leader says "let me know how I can help." Use it to accelerate your projects and your career while increasing perception…

Dec 4, 2025 • Yue Zhao

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