Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

Guest: Mansour Javidan What do getting a little drunk and meeting quarterly quotas have in common for leaders? They each build trust with your team — depending on what country you’re in!   Guest Mansour Javidan has studied the similarities — and differences — in effective leadership in cultures across the globe. He shares the results of his research in this episode…especially the common qualities...

Guest: Dr. Karen Tilstra Here’s the painful truth: following old established procedures and avoiding risk stifles your growth…even your survival. What’s the answer?   Innovation. But, as Dr. Karen Tilstra points out in this episode, fear keeps your team from embracing innovation. She calls the point of fear the Deathline. Deathlines may doom your organization’s long-term success. Fortunately, Dr....

Guest: Cameron Stockdale Can a four-day workweek be just as productive – even more productive – than a five-day workweek?   The answer is an unquestionable “yes!” Cameron Stockdale talks about this and other workplace wellness initiatives with host Maureen Metcalf in this episode. Cameron is the CEO of the Work Wellness Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia. They’ve experimented with many diffe...

Guests: Chris Nolan & Michael Schindler In their zealous rush to incorporate Artificial Intelligence, most corporate leaders are forgetting one thing: you. Chris Nolan and Michael Schindler remind execs to remember humanness in their plans. AI may be a great time- and money-saving tool, but humans remain an important equation in the mix. A complete reliance on AI overlooks the nuances and insi...

Guest: Sonya Shelton Where is passion bred: in the heart or in the head? An executive may not care, but a leader knows how critical passion is – along with purpose and culture.   In this episode, Sonya Shelton reviews these and other critical elements of true leadership with host Maureen Metcalf. In a process called Red Thread Leadership, Sonya helps leaders tease out the elements that make their...

Guest: Jennifer Nash In corporate America through the years, CEOs lost sight of something: humans. Humans fell so far off the radar that, when corporate leadership was analyzed, the majority of executives were actually leading processes and procedures, not people!   Do you work for one of those execs? Are you one of them?   There’s hope! Some leaders – like Ford’s Alan Mulally – began putting huma...

Guest: Dre Baldwin Feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by the lack of progress in achieving your goals, despite your best efforts and hard work?  You are not alone! Many leaders and aspiring leaders find themselves trapped in a cycle of unproductive actions, such as micromanaging every task or relying solely on their team's inertia, instead of taking personal initiative. This not only hinders their...

Guest: Pauline Koelbl 40% of small and medium-sized businesses in Africa are owned by women. But expanding those businesses is tough: in 2022, single female founders and exclusively-female founding teams received only around 2.4% of investments that went to startups in Africa . Pauline Koelbl is out to change that and narrow the extreme gender gap. Born in Rwanda, Pauline faced the challenges of l...

Guest: Joshua Freedman Gallup and other surveys are showing employee disengagement at record highs. The human energy crisis is at its root. This energy crisis isn’t due to staff skipping breakfast and coffee in the morning; it’s the result of stunningly low emotional intelligence (or EQ) with American bosses. We can’t answer it by becoming more like Vulcans; the lack of emphasis on emotional intel...

Guests: Jim Ritchie-Dunham, Suzie Lewis, & David Dinwoodie Here’s a common business myth: the key to navigating all the complexity increasing in the world is simply working harder and longer. But the results aren’t there. Neither is the science.   In reality, the future of work requires agility, and adaptive problem-solving. In this episode, guests Jim Ritchie-Dunham, Suzie Lewis, and David Di...

Guest: Lisa Campbell Pets in the workplace can boost productivity, well-being, and those vaunted “water cooler” conversations. (Although they become “water bowl” conversations instead…)   Those are just some of the benefits for both businesses and employees Lisa Campbell, VP of Corporate Affairs for Mars Pet Nutrition North America, shares in this episode. Sure, there’s some prep work to be done,...

Guest: Ehren Cruz In this supplemental episode, we learn that psychedelic drugs have entered the C-suite. After decades as a societal pariah, why are psychedelics finding a home among America’s corporate leaders?   Focusing on plant medicine, Ehren Cruz gives some of the background, history, and science behind the many business uses leaders are finding. The Wall Street Journal is paying attention...

Guest: Rini Das Simplify. Streamline. Succeed. Seems simple enough, but most big organizations do the opposite, bogging teams down with more and more complexity. But as the world itself becomes more complex and changes (like AI) arrive more rapidly, resilience is absolutely key for any organization’s survival – much less success!   Rini Das knows complexity; she worked in healthcare early in her c...

Guests: Christina Grote and Pam Kramer We tell our teams not to stress, and to have a good work-life balance. But what about us: their leaders? Too often, leaders ignore their own advice – and the stress becomes overwhelming.   Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) is one answer. More than just another mindfulness practice, it’s a way of growing and developing, created to help you explore your fu...

Guest: Morra Aarons-Mele Does anxiety plague your leadership role? Just push through it isn’t a solution: the constant stress and strain of anxiety can take a toll on both your mental health and workplace performance. It's time to stop ignoring the issue and start implementing effective strategies to manage anxiety. Morra Aarons-Mele lives with anxiety, too, but has researched it deeply. Now, she’...

Guest: Pamela Larde, Ph. D. Does the struggle to balance work and personal life sound familiar? Have you bought the myth that working harder leads to? You’re not alone. But the truth is, that leads to burnout, stress, and decreased productivity. It’s time to break free and discover the power of joy in professional settings. By prioritizing joy and well-being, you can enhance your personal and prof...

Guests: Ricky Robinson & Keith Powell Are you on code? “On code” is like authenticity on steroids: as a leader you not only walk the talk, but give back, bring others along (mentor and sponsor), and fight for change when you see inequity. Being on code can be tough; after all, as guest Ricky Robinson points out, “In reality, most organizations don’t want you to be your authentic self.”   But f...

Guest: Sarah Ahern Client loyalty. Stakeholder loyalty. Employee loyalty. However you define your customers, their loyalty is key to moving your organization from just good to great. One key to growing it is to always make it easy for your customer to get what they want from you.   But how do you know what they want, much less how they want to receive it?   With data! And knowing how to find that...

Guest: Neil Sahota The jobs of tomorrow are being incubated right now.   Artificial Intelligence – AI – is already rapidly transforming our world. You have two years, maybe up to five, before it transforms your work, too. But IBM Master Inventor Neil Sahota sees hope, not gloom: throughout human history, technological transformations meant more and often better jobs. The key is to be ready, and Ne...

Guest: Teuila Hanson Does your team feel like they belong in your organization? Do you?   At LinkedIn, that feeling of belonging is a critical part of workplace culture. And one way they accomplish it is by taking DEI to a whole new level: DIBs (Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging programs). Chief People Officer Teuila Hanson has seen remarkable success with it…so much so, LinkedIn happily share...

Guest: Dr. Gleb Tsipursky Many CEOs and executives insisting on staff returning to the office full time are making decisions based on myths about hybrid work. The truth may surprise them – and you!   Dr. Gleb Tsipursky busts those myths with hard data and direct experience with 23+ organizations. The bottom line: for the majority of “office” workers, hybrid work benefits both wellbeing and product...

Guest: Laura Fuentes Joy, learning, friendship: that’s how Laura Fuentes believes the ideal workplace should be. When she arrived at Hilton, Laura found a culture and leadership team that was thinking along the same lines. Since then, she’s been instrumental in guiding the growth of that culture into one of inclusion, wellness, growth, and purpose – the four pillars of Hilton. It’s just one way La...

Guest: Kvon Tucker If there’s one key thing that’s common to all effective leadership theories, it’s this: leadership is all about relationships. Kvon Tucker distilled this through both academic scholarship and real-world experience at Netflix, Google, and Amazon. Those companies remain high-performing outliers because of their unique leadership culture, and an emphasis on relationships (and writi...

Guest: Will O’Brien & Dave DuBose The labor shortage is not going away. Workers are more transient, looking for better pay, plus Amazon, Walmart, and other large online retailers are continuing to drive up competition for distribution center (DC) employees. So, most DC operators resort to wage increases and retention bonuses as the quick solution to this really challenging people problem. Will...

Guest: Greg Moran Odds are Artificial Intelligence isn’t going to replace you at work. It’s going to join you.   Greg Moran sees AI integrating much the same way breakthrough technologies always have. It will help us be more efficient, and help leaders make better decisions. Of course, it’s not all rasterized rainbows and Unix unicorns; to thrive, people will have to be able and willing to continu...