Corporate America may be filled with accomplished executives, entrepreneurs and professionals, but business strategist Glenn Llopis believes many of today’s most capable leaders are facing a deeper problem than burnout: a loss of conviction.
Llopis, a Fortune 500 business strategist and Forbes contributor, calls it the “conviction crisis.” In his new book, Earning Conviction: The Practice That Redirects Leaders from Exhausted to Unshakable, he argues that leaders can become exhausted when they spend too much time performing confidence, adapting to systems that resist change and maintaining professional identities that no longer reflect who they are.
The book arrives as disengagement and workplace exhaustion remain major concerns for businesses. Gallup has estimated that low employee engagement costs the global economy trillions of dollars annually, underscoring the potential consequences of disconnected workers and leaders.
For Llopis, however, the problem goes beyond productivity.
He argues that many high-performing professionals have achieved the credentials, promotions and titles they once wanted but still feel unfulfilled. Their ability to perform does not necessarily mean they have developed the internal conviction needed to sustain meaningful change.
“Capability is not conviction,” Llopis said. “Competence is what you perform; conviction is the earned capability to sustain who you are when every force pulls you back — and you cannot fake it or demand it.”
Earning Conviction offers 101 specific “redirects” designed to help readers examine their leadership habits, assumptions and personal choices. The framework is aimed at professionals who may appear successful externally while privately questioning whether their careers and leadership styles still align with their values.
Llopis describes conviction as something that must be developed rather than something a leader can simply declare. He connects it to self-awareness, personal decisions and the willingness to continue evolving rather than simply maintaining the status quo.
The book includes a companion assessment that allows readers to evaluate their progress and repeat the exercise over time. The goal is to help readers identify where they are currently operating from confidence, capability or conviction—and determine what needs to change.
Jeff Blue, the multi-platinum A&R executive producer behind Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory, contributed the foreword. Blue describes conviction as a defining quality that separates exceptional leaders and creators from those who are eventually forgotten.
For Llopis, the concept is particularly relevant to professionals who have spent years succeeding according to conventional measures but now find themselves exhausted or disconnected.
He argues that leaders should stop treating exhaustion solely as a workload problem and instead examine whether they are spending too much energy pretending to be someone they are not.
“Conviction is earned,” Llopis said, through self-awareness, personal choices and the willingness to keep becoming rather than simply maintaining.
Published by GLLG Press, Earning Conviction: The Practice That Redirects Leaders from Exhausted to Unshakable was released July 7, 2026. The book offers leaders a framework for reconsidering how they work, make decisions and define success—while challenging them to replace performed confidence with something more durable: conviction.