The page-one headline blazed in this morning’s Wall Street Journal: signs of global economic slowdown.

As I’ve said many times before, we are in an extended period of economic stagnation. I’m such a firm believer in this view that more than a year ago I designed a Leadership Now Workshop around the idea. It quickly became one of my most-requested sessions.

I’ll continue to offer it.

This is a unique stretch of River. It will call upon some elements of leadership that are shared in every period, every situation, but it will also require leaders to act and think differently than they would in good times, salad days, and economic up-turns. Furthermore, those elements that are the same from one period to the next? Well, my tip to you is that even if they do hold true from time to time to time, you’ll often see that they’re functioning in a totally different context and environment (that of economic stagnation).

That’s what I want you to remember. You’ll have to act and think differently, in at least some ways, than you have before. And in part of the other ways that you maintain, you’ll find that a portion of them will have a strange look and feel because they’re in a shifting, bigger picture.

Hang on, as one of my favorite old movie quotes goes, it’s going to get a little bumpy.