Nike. Disney. Hobby Lobby. Gillette. Bud Light. Tractor Supply. Cracker Barrel. Over the past decade, companies like these—and many others—have engaged in actions that wade into tricky sociopolitical territory. While some of these companies’ actions are deliberate choices, many involve leaders who are caught off guard. Consider Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce, who suggested during an October 2025 interview that sending in the National Guard would help address crime in San Francisco. After public condemnation, he apologized and reversed his stance. His initial statement angered liberals, his sudden U-turn annoyed some conservatives—and in the end, the incident left almost nobody happy. The incident illustrates how the consequences of political statements by a CEO or other forms of corporate activism can be significant. During the two years following Bud Light’s $20,000 influencer promotion with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, the brand’s sales fell sharply, and Bud Light lost its position as America’s top-selling beer. Meanwhile, after Elon Musk created the Department of Government Efficiency and aligned himself with the Republican administration, Tesla’s third quarter 2025 EBITDA fell 9% year-over-year—driven partly by declining customer loyalty. Since 2021, we’ve been studying how and why companies navigate these choices—and the consequences of getting it wrong. One of us (Kimberly) has written case studies on political activities by Coca-Cola, Tractor Supply, Bud Light, and Disney. In 2024, HBR published an article on our research into how companies can assess and minimize the risk of engagement and should try to understand consumers’ views before taking political stances. In executive education sessions and consulting engagements, we’ve led discussions with more than 1,000 corporate leaders (including CEOs and CMOs) on how to make decisions about when and whether to engage on these kinds of issues. Companies have always had to manage their corporate reputations, and in our teaching and consulting, we advise executives to approach the choice to become vocal or active politically as an increasingly significant part of managing that reputation. To supplement the feedback and learning we’ve accumulated on this issue, we conducted a survey of 121 business leaders across North America, Europe, and APAC at three organizational levels: C-suite (45.6%), senior management (31.4%), and junior management (24.5%). Our goal was to better understand the different sources of pressure that are pushing corporate leaders to take stands. Sources of Pressure Our research identified 14 distinct sources of pressure, falling into four categories: Employees within the company. These include opinions or pressure from leaders above the respondent, from employees, corporate social responsibility (CSR) or diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) teams, and the leader’s peers. External stakeholders. These include consumers, investors/owners, government/regulators, and agencies/consultants. External influencers. These include the media, celebrity/expert/social media influencers, activists, friends/family, and company analysts. The leader’s own beliefs. This refers to an individual’s personal values and convictions that drive action. When we talk with people about our research, they expect us to say that external influencers—especially the media, social media influencers, customers, and investors—have the most sway over a company’s political stances. They’re surprised by our results: In fact, only customers landed in the top five forces cited in our survey. (It ranked as the top influence.) Leaders’ own beliefs, people in the company above them, members of the same department, and colleagues on the DEI/CSR teams were ranked from second to fifth, in that order. The absolute level of pressure from top sources is high—respondents rated their influence at 4.5 out of 5. This response helps explain why, even if there is sound business logic for staying silent on divisive issues to avoid upsetting one group or another, leaders often wind up making statements or taking actions that cause blowback. Our results show leaders feel intense pressure to engage. The rest of the sources of pressure, in order of influence, are: the press, employees outside of a person’s department, investors/owners, government/regulators, agencies/consultants, influencers (social media/celebrities/experts), activists, family and friends, and company analysts. Three Blind Spots Regarding Activism Our discussions with leaders about these issues also reveal three critical blind spots affecting leaders’ activism decisions: Blind spot #1: Believing personal beliefs should drive business decisions Among the C-suite respondents to our survey, the highest-ranked influence factor is their own beliefs and values. The candor with which respondents acknowledged this influence is revealing. If leaders thought it wrong to make business decisions based on personal beliefs, they wouldn’t admit it drives their choices. They apparently consider it acceptable. In our workshops, which include people ranging from MBA students in their 20s to C-suite executives in their 60s and beyond, we’ve noticed that younger people are more likely to believe their personal views are a legitimate factor in business decisions. More experienced executives tread more carefully around these choices, but we have encountered senior leaders who feel there are situations in which their personal value system must take precedence. As one CEO put it in a workshop discussion: “Sometimes you have to do the right thing even when it hurts the company.” Another senior executive put it more bluntly: “I don’t care if it hurts the company if I sleep at night.” In our classes and consulting work, we challenge CEOs who believe this choice is justified. We encourage them to exercise humility and recognize that their personal view may directly conflict with the beliefs of thousands of their shareholders, and we remind them that executives have a fiduciary responsibility to act in shareholders’ interest. Some companies have explicit policies stating that personal interests shouldn’t override that priority. For instance, Coca-Cola’s Code of Conduct states: “We are all expected to act in the best interest of our Company. This means we must never allow our personal interests to influence our actions on behalf of the Company. Every decision we make while on the job must be objective and with our Company’s business interests in mind.” Netflix is another example of a company that’s created a formal policy around how employees’ personal beliefs intersect with business decisions. Netflix’s careers page states: We support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a wide variety of audiences, cultures and tastes… As employees, we support these principles, even if some stories run counter to our personal values. And we understand that, depending on our roles, we may need to work on TV shows, films or games we perceive to be harmful. If you’d find it hard to support the breadth of our slate, Netflix is probably not the best place for you. Blind Spot #2: Being overly influenced by employees In our classroom discussions, leaders tell us they face significant pressure from employees. Three of the top five forces they cite as influences are other groups of employees. When employees band together on an issue, they can exert real power. One example of that was Google’s decision to exit a $10 billion bid to provide cloud computing to the Department of Defense (the so-called “Jedi” project) after employee protests. In our seminars, we remind senior leaders that employees’ views rarely represent the breadth of a company’s stakeholders—and they can diverge sharply with the views of consumers and investors. Executives say they feel pressure from fellow employees acutely partly because of proximity: These are the people they see and talk to each day at work. When employees are opposed to the company’s position on an issue, every internal meeting can become tense. For this reason, leaders say it’s understandable that they pay such close attention to employees’ point of view. Blind spot #3: Not understanding the breadth of consumer views Although leaders indicate that they make an effort to listen to consumer perspectives, they describe a relatively informal or nonexistent process of gathering feedback specifically on sociopolitical views. If these executives were making an important decision around a new product launch or an ad campaign, they would likely convene focus groups or conduct rigorous research. When making choices around divisive political issues, however, leaders say they can be influenced by the volume of people speaking out—on social media, or through phone calls and emails to the company. The problem with this approach is that companies wind up listening to a vocal minority that doesn’t necessarily represent their entire consumer base. Part of the challenge is that functions accustomed to surveying and generating consumer feedback, such as marketing or product development, are often not involved in managing external communications. The customer-understanding rigor that exists in marketing and R&D can be missing in the departments that manage CEO and investor relations. As a result, there isn’t an effective feedback loop prior to CEO and firm statements being published. An example of a company that seeks to understand the full breadth of consumer views through rigorous data-based insight generation is McDonald’s Corporation. According to Artemis Bakopoulos Hiss, senior director of global external affairs and crisis at McDonald’s, the company continuously monitors the health of its reputation to help inform corporate statements and assess how those statements resonate with both internal and external stakeholders. This approach integrates stakeholder insight with communications decision‑making, rather than relying solely on the volume or intensity of inbound pressure. The effectiveness of this approach was evident when McDonald’s announced its decision to pause operations and subsequently exit Russia in 2022. The company also applies this same insight‑driven approach when evaluating whether to speak out or take action on external political or social issues during flashpoint moments, such as when President Trump visited a McDonald’s restaurant prior to the 2024 election. How to Overcome the Blind Spots Companies can address these vulnerabilities in three ways: Train employees to put corporate purpose above personal agendas. Educate new and current employees during recruiting, orientation, and ongoing training. Organizations designed to be apolitical—police departments, healthcare systems, the military—have mechanisms to set and reinforce standards. As referenced above, Netflix tells job candidates they may need to work on content that they may find “harmful”—and if they can’t do that, they shouldn’t apply. Be explicit about the role individual ideology should (or shouldn’t) play in company-wide decisions. Drive awareness among C-level leaders. Those at the top influence those below them, whether they intend to or not. Help leaders understand how their bias manifests and remind them of their responsibility to all stakeholders. One way is to create and explicitly state a company policy. For example, Coca-Cola states on their website that they do not include “the personal political views of company directors, leaders, and employees in the political decisions the company or Coca-Cola PAC makes.” Another way to drive awareness—one we utilize in our workshops—is to ask whether a CEO or other senior leader was asked about political views when they interviewed for their current role. Most tell us this never came up during interviews, and when we ask them why, they admit it’s probably because the board or people making the hire hadn’t anticipated that their political views would play a role in how they execute their work. Leaders can also implement training and/or simulations where they practice high-pressure decisions with experts who can provide real-time feedback on blind spots and errors. Making these choices in simulation can help leaders better understand and anticipate the negative consequences of taking a public stand. Highlight the gap between employee and consumer views. Some companies have employee bases that differ dramatically from their consumers due to location, demographics, or other factors. Employee views may be unrepresentative and misleading. For instance, some studies have found that employees at tech companies donate money to liberal candidates at much higher levels than conservative candidates. To help employees understand that their views may not reflect those of other stakeholders, companies should seek to create tolerance and inclusion of consumer diversity through data sharing, research comparing employees and consumers, and encouraging employees to interact with and serve customers. . . . Companies are engaging in activism in ways that damage their brands and financial results. Pressure to engage comes from many sources and varies by organizational level. Understanding these influences, creating awareness of why individuals engage in activism, and aligning company and individual beliefs can help mitigate the blind spots that lead to costly missteps.
