Responsible Leaders - Healthy Cultures

In this episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast, your host Tobias Sturesson brings back a conversation that many new listeners may not have heard. In this insightful interview with ethics professor and author Ann Tenbrunsel, from almost two years ago (November 2020), they discuss whether we truly are as values-driven as we think, and why we make bad decisions even when we might have...

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Sandra J. Sucher, on this fascinating and timely episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Sandra discusses the foundation of a healthy organizational culture - trust, and how trust can be built, lost, and regained. Sandra J. Sucher is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and an internationa...

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Maria Hemberg, on this informative and helpful episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Maria shares what it means to live one's values, how Volvo Cars think about ethics, and how they are meeting the radical shifts in the car industry. Maria Hemberg has more than 25 years of experience from practicing business law...

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Dan Cable, on this inspiring episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Dan shares profound insights into how you can bring more meaning to your organization. With a focus on experimentation and purpose, Dan unpacks a remarkable example of the power of servant leadership and how redesigning your rituals can contribut...

As we are now taking steps into a new post-pandemic normal in many parts of the world, it seems like many organizations are struggling with how to have trusting and constructive internal conversations about how and where they do their best work. As a result, internal trust in leadership seems to be shaken. An essential foundation for a healthy culture is an organization’s ability to have hard and...

Many organizations struggle with a culture of silence in which critical concerns are neither welcomed nor raised, essential feedback is unshared, and vital ideas are left unsaid. But how do you measure a lack of something? How do you deal with something that isn’t there? What strategies and habits need to be implemented to deal with silence? This final episode of Season 5 is a recording of an onli...

As we are now taking steps into a new post-pandemic normal in many parts of the world, it seems like many organizations are struggling with how to have trusting and constructive internal conversations about how and where they do their best work. As a result, internal trust in leadership seems to be shaken. An essential foundation for a healthy culture is an organization’s ability to have hard and...

We live in times in which circumstances change rapidly, decisions are rarely black and white, and it's hard to know what is right, true, and most important. With our current political climate, polarization, and media culture, there are considerable risks involved in decision-making. How do we build a healthy organizational culture with an ethical compass in turbulent times?  Professor and eth...

A culture of speaking up and listening up does not happen by default. Leaders need to build it with intentionality and an awareness of their blindspots. Researcher and author Megan Reitz is passionate about helping people flourish in their workplaces through the way they speak with, listen to, learn from, and care for each other. In this engaging and helpful episode, your host Tobias and Megan dis...

Values that don’t cost us something aren’t worth anything. In the struggle between upholding the principles we say we believe in and a possible loss of prestige or financial gain, our values get tested and are often found lacking. Sweden's leading political scientist, Bo Rothstein, gave up a coveted professorship because he couldn’t teach political ethics with good conscience in a role funded by a...

The pandemic has greatly impacted how organizations gather. Not having been able to put all the focus on a few physical gatherings or corporate retreats, organizations have hopefully had an opportunity to think through what values and behaviors are actually promoted through their stories, rituals, and processes. INSEAD's Associate Professor, Mark Mortensen, has investigated the nature of conflict...

Building a healthy culture and fostering ethical decision-making requires an environment in which concerns are raised and dangerous blindness is avoided. However, creating such an environment seems to be one of the most challenging aspects of leadership. Best-selling author Kim Scott has thought long and hard about how organizations can facilitate the hard conversations that need to happen in orde...

We often don't know what to do with regret. Organizations often have a culture that causes its employees to be solely future-focused, not dwelling on past failures. While there is certainly a need to move forward, the danger is that past regrets become taboo; people can feel like there is something wrong with them if they have regrets. However, best-selling author Daniel Pink believes that regret...

On 24 February 2022 Putin ordered the Russian army to attack Ukraine. At the time of this episode, there are more than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine that have crossed the border to another European country. Amid this pain, fear, and uncertainty people are still taking leadership.  This episode is a conversation with one of those brave leaders: Serhii Bolchuk, the co-founder of Agape Ukrai...

Office politics. It's a phrase to which many have some kind of gut reaction. Probably a highly negative one. Niven Postma makes the case that it's essentially impossible to avoid office politics. In every organization, there is a need to socialize and build momentum for ideas in ways that are outside of the formal process and hierarchy; it happens all the time. In this insightful episode, your hos...

Welcome to a new season of the Leading Transformational Change podcast!  A healthy culture is a culture in which ethics and values are central to the decision-making process.  While laws and regulations can offer us some guidance, Dr. Susan Liautaud makes the case that the ethics edge - the areas in which we can’t rely on rules but need our ethical compass and clear guiding principles -...

As season four of the Leading Transformational Change podcast draws to a close, your host, Tobias Sturesson, takes this opportunity to encourage you and your organization to continue pursuing a healthy culture. Together, we can make organizations that live their purpose, succeed in their mission, and have a positive impact on all stakeholders, the norm and not the exception. Wishing you a peaceful...

What makes people prejudiced and what makes them fight in conflicts? While the "Us vs Them" mentality is a common organizational culture challenge experienced by HR professionals and leaders, there is in-depth research that reveals something more pervasive that needs greater attention: collective narcissism. Dr Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, a distinguished professor who heads up PrejudiceLab, defines...

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) concluded in mid-November. It can be difficult to discern between quantifiable achievements and empty promises. Parul Sharma, a distinguished human rights lawyer, contends that many companies spend more resources on communication around their sustainability initiatives than on the initiatives themselves. In this comprehensive and informativ...

Instead of dealing with real organizational and cultural issues, leaders can often engage the organization in exercises around values that are at best meaningless or at worst lead to distrust and disillusion. A leading voice behind this criticism in Sweden is Professor Mats Alvesson, known for coining the term "functional stupidity". In this confronting and thought-provoking episode, Mats discusse...

In this exciting and insightful episode, Tonia Ries, responsible for the Edelman Trust Barometer and the leader of the firm's global knowledge agenda, discusses the importance and role of trust within an organization, what it means to be trustworthy, and how to build trust with stakeholders. Indeed, it's not just enough to be seen as competent; we also need to be seen as ethical. Tonia Ries is Exe...

In this engaging and eye-opening episode, Kevin Oakes, the CEO and co-founder of i4cp (the leading authority on next practices in human capital), and the author of the recently published book, Culture Renovation ™, unpacks the strategies and actions that i4cp, through extensive research, has learned are key to successfully renovating culture. As CEO and co-founder of i4cp, Kevin Oakes provides str...

In this informative and helpful episode, Guido Palazzo, a business ethics professor with a passion for examining and understanding unethical decision making, provides profound observations about the current state of society, and how to embrace uncertainty, fear, and irrationality with a sense of hope.  In addition, he shares ways that leaders and HR professionals can create an organizational...

"Think about how you can incorporate the things we do in our daily lives that we enjoy into your training programs - that is how you appeal to my emotional side and then you're more likely to get a change in behavior." Join your host, Tobias Sturesson, and his guest, Kelly Richmond Pope, for this episode on The Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this candid and insightful conversation, Ke...

"We need to invite in the critics. We need to open our doors. We need to listen to them." Join your host, Tobias Sturesson, and his guest, Bob Langert, for this episode on The Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this fascinating and helpful conversation, you will learn how Bob Langert, former VP of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability at McDonald's, shifted from fighting the...