By John Barrows | October 2026

Privilege in leadership is not about a silver spoon. It is the ability to walk alone at night without thinking twice, to get pulled over by a cop and give them an attitude without worrying about what comes next, to sit back when something wrong is happening and tell yourself you are one of the good ones because you did not do the bad thing. Those of us who have that kind of privilege and are not using it to say something are part of the problem. The past two weeks made that clear to me.

Why I could not write about sales

I have sat down to write this newsletter more times than I can count over the past two weeks. Cold call openers, AI agents, how to book more meetings. All stuff I care about and all stuff I normally have no problem writing about. But I am the father of a 16-year-old girl, and I have not been able to get the Cornell7 out of my head. Writing about pipeline while that was sitting in my chest felt fake, and fake is the one thing I have never wanted to be on here.

Whenever someone asks me whether they should post on social, start a podcast, or write a newsletter, I tell them the same thing: share your story and speak up, because you never know who is listening or the impact your words can have. This week I am taking my own advice.

What my dad left on his desk

When my dad passed away, I was cleaning up his desk and found a quote written on a small piece of paper: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Before I had it tattooed on my arm, I had to sit with it for a while to understand what it really meant.

Privilege is not about wealth. It is the unearned advantages that create unequal starting lines in life. One of the clearest examples I have seen is an experiment by Adam Donyes. He lines a group of kids up in a field and tells them whoever wins the race gets $100. But before the race starts, he asks a series of questions. If your parents are still married, take two steps forward. If you have never had to worry about where your next meal was coming from, take two steps forward. If your parents paid for college, take two steps forward. By the end, the kids closest to the finish line were mostly white males, and the kids still near the starting line were mostly people of color and women.

The point is not that every white male has the same privilege or has not had to struggle. The point is that we all have privilege in some form, some far more than others, and those of us who have it need to recognize it and use it to help others rather than react negatively when equality starts to feel like a threat.

What GirlDads need to teach BoyDads

As a GirlDad, I teach my daughter to always walk with a friend, carry her keys in her hand, never go anywhere alone with a guy she does not know, keep her head up when she is walking around, and watch for boys who are overly aggressive in other areas of their lives. These are things I have accepted as part of raising a daughter.

I know plenty of BoyDads and moms who teach their boys to be good kids. But good is not enough anymore. We need to have the harder conversations. We need to teach them that being a real man means standing up for others who cannot stand up for themselves. That friends who do and say harmful things are not worth protecting with silence in a group chat. That saying nothing when you see something wrong is a choice, and it has consequences for real people.

The alpha male narrative that too many young men find online needs to stop being where they go for a sense of belonging. And here is something worth knowing: the alpha concept came from early wolf studies where researchers believed packs were dominated by a single aggressive male. That research has since been debunked. Later studies showed that wolf packs function more like family units, with cooperation and shared roles. A true alpha protects the pack. They lift others up. That is the model we need to give young men, not the Andrew Tate version.

What I am doing about it

My first instinct was to rant. I went to Instagram, called out the boys and the dozens of others who watched and said nothing, and went full Boston-John. It felt good for about ten minutes. Then I took it down, because rage without action does not help anyone, and it certainly does not help the people who were actually hurt.

So here is what I am actually doing. My daughter and I built the Future Founder Project to support future entrepreneurs, with a focus on underprivileged kids. Starting now, $100 of every $500 sponsorship goes directly to the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn, right down the street from my house. I am also going to walk in, meet the people doing the work, and find out how I can help beyond writing a check.

Here is what I am asking you to do. Pick one. If you have a son, nephew, grandson, or a young man you coach or manage, have the group chat conversation this week. Ask him what he would do if someone in his group chat shared something harmful about a woman. Then shut up and listen. If you are a man with a few hours a month, show up for a kid who does not have a man in his life. Try the Boys and Girls Club in your town, Big Brothers Big Sisters, or a team that needs a coach. Boys wait the longest for mentors because not enough men raise their hand.

One last thing. While I was writing this, I went down a rabbit hole on how wolf packs actually travel. Do you know who leads from the front? The parents. Mom and dad share the lead, breaking trail through the snow so the rest of the pack can follow. That is what alpha really looks like: a leader and a partner. We need that more than ever right now, and we need the people who have been sitting on the sidelines to speak up.

Frequently asked questions

What does privilege mean in leadership?

Privilege in leadership means having advantages (access, platform, credibility, safety) that others in the same room do not have, often without earning them. For leaders, the question is not whether you have privilege but what you do with it. Leaders who use their platform to speak up, to sponsor people with less access, and to name problems others cannot safely name are doing what leadership actually requires. Leaders who stay silent because the topic is outside their lane are making a choice, and that choice has consequences for the people most affected by the thing they will not say.

Is the alpha male theory based on real wolf behavior?

No. The alpha male concept as most people understand it came from early wolf research where scientists believed packs were dominated by a single aggressive male. That research has since been retracted by the scientist who published it. Later studies of wolves in natural environments showed that packs function more like family units, led cooperatively by a breeding pair that shares responsibilities. The idea of an alpha who dominates through force is not how wolf packs actually work. A more accurate picture of alpha behavior is a parent who breaks trail through the snow so the rest of the pack can follow.

How do you talk to young men about accountability?

Start with the group chat. Ask the young man in your life what he would do if someone shared something harmful in a group chat he was part of. The answer matters less than the conversation itself. Most young men have not been asked this question directly by an adult they respect. Research on bystander behavior is consistent: people are more likely to intervene when they have already rehearsed what they would do. The conversation is the rehearsal. Do not wait for a specific incident to make it feel relevant.

What is the Future Founder Project?

The Future Founder Project is a program John Barrows built with his daughter to support future entrepreneurs, with a focus on underprivileged kids. A portion of every sponsorship goes to local organizations like the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn that do the direct work of mentoring young people. More information is at futurefounderproject.com.

Why do boys wait longer for mentors than girls?

Boys wait longer for mentors primarily because fewer men volunteer for mentorship programs than women do. Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters consistently report longer wait times for boys, and the gap is driven almost entirely by the volunteer pipeline, not the demand. Men who have the time and inclination to mentor tend to underestimate how much their consistent presence matters to a kid without a stable male figure in his life. The threshold for meaningful impact is low: a few hours a month, over time, makes a measurable difference.

Use your platform

If you want to back the Future Founder Project, sponsor here. $100 of every sponsorship goes to the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn. If you want to volunteer, try the Boys and Girls Club in your town or Big Brothers Big Sisters. And if you have a young man in your life, have the group chat conversation this week.

John Barrows helps sales leaders decide whether to replace, rebuild, or retrain their teams for the AI era. For 25+ years he has worked with the world’s most demanding sales organizations, including Salesforce, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Okta, building the frameworks that became Filling the Funnel and Driving to Close. Today he advises CROs and VPs of Sales on AI readiness, team restructuring, and go-to-market strategy, drawing on exposure to every type of B2B sales organization over that span. John believes sales is a science, not a personality contest. His training focuses on the fundamentals that hold up regardless of what the market or the technology does next. He has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Inc., Fortune, Entrepreneur, and the Boston Business Journal. He is the host of Make It Happen Mondays, author of I Want to Be in Sales When I Grow Up, and an LP at GTMfund.

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