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A Podcast About Leadership: Daily Summaries Delivered
by AIIR Consulting
Leadership has the power to shape the future — of work and of the world. But in a period of history increasingly defined by complexity, uncertainty, and change, the skills and mindsets leaders need to succeed are shifting faster than ever. A Podcast About Leadership faces this challenge head-on, offering the insights and inspiration leaders need to navigate change and shape a better future. Each episode, we speak with leaders and leading thinkers in business, leadership, psychology, neuroscience, and human performance. Together, we explore the the challenges leaders face today— from leading through volatility and uncertainty to developing the empathy, resilience, and strategic vision required to thrive in the years ahead. Whether you’re an individual leader looking to increase your impact or a human resources (HR), talent, or learning and development leader shaping the future of leadership across your organization, A Podcast About Leadership has the information, inspiration, and practical application you need. Meet the Host Dr. Jonathan Kirschner is the founder and CEO of AIIR Consulting, a global authority on executive coaching and leadership development. A psychologist and entrepreneur, Jonathan has nearly two decades of experience helping leaders at the world’s most respected organizations accelerate performance, transform cultures, and unlock human potential. His expertise sits at the intersection of behavioral science, business strategy, and technology, making him a sought-after advisor to executives navigating complexity and change.
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 1 weeks ago1h 23m
AI Transformation and the Future of Leadership
Most organizations have handed their people AI tools, run a training or two, and waited for the productivity revolution to arrive. It hasn't. The technology works — so why aren't the results showing up?Itamar Katsch is a business psychologist, Managing Partner at AIIR Consulting, and the firm's AI Transformation Lead — a role built on a decade spanning Deloitte's human capital practice, leadership development inside high-growth SaaS companies, and hands-on AI enablement work at scale. In this episode of A Podcast About Leadership, host Jonathan Kirschner, CEO of AIIR Consulting, sits down with Katsch for a wide-ranging conversation on why AI adoption is fundamentally a leadership problem — and what it actually takes to solve it.The 90/10 Problem — Getting AI to produce something impressive is easy; getting it to produce something excellent requires the human judgment, contextual nuance, and resilient iteration that most organizations are skipping entirely.Don't Hand Over the Thinking — Katsch's rule for his own team — "the first draft is you" — captures a principle that leaders need to actively reinforce: AI should accelerate human thinking, not replace the act of thinking itself.Why Mandates Backfire — KPI-linked token usage, blanket adoption mandates, and one-and-done prompt engineering trainings all share the same flaw: they activate fear, not intrinsic motivation, and produce superficial compliance at best.HR's Moment to Lead — The skills required for genuine AI transformation — workflow redesign, change navigation, incentive architecture, talent development — sit squarely in HR's wheelhouse. Katsch makes the case that HR must first transform itself before it can transform the business.The Junior Talent Time Bomb — When organizations eliminate entry-level work because AI can do it faster, they quietly hollow out the talent pipeline that produces future senior leaders — a trade-off most executives haven't fully reckoned with.If you're a senior leader or CHRO trying to figure out where to start, Katsch's answer is disarmingly direct: start with yourself. The organizations that will unlock real ROI from AI won't be the ones with the best tools — they'll be the ones with leaders willing to become learners again.To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders build resilient, high-performing teams, visit https://aiirconsulting.com.
- Oct 1, 202658 min
Turnaround Leadership with Matt Baer, CEO of Stitch Fix
What do you do when you inherit a declining company with brilliant people, a powerful mission, and a culture that never learned how to compete? And what if the very thing that could save it — human connection at scale — is the same thing the rest of retail has been quietly eliminating for thirty years?Matt Baer is the CEO of Stitch Fix, the AI-powered personal styling service that pairs algorithmic precision with real human stylists to deliver one-to-one retail experiences at scale. He joined Jonathan Kirschner, CEO of AIIR Consulting and host of A Podcast About Leadership, alongside executive coach and author Jamie Ramsden for a candid conversation about leading from the front — and refusing to take shortcuts.The Anatomy of a Turnaround — Baer walks through the three-phase transformation strategy he built at Stitch Fix: rationalize, rebuild, and return to growth — and why getting the sequence right matters more than moving fast.Retail Is a Competitive Sport — On the danger of complacency, Baer explains why the best retailers live in a state of perpetual transformation and how he worked to embed that fighting mentality into a company that was built more like a tech startup than a retailer.AI as Amplifier, Not Replacement — Stitch Fix's governing philosophy on artificial intelligence isn't about automation — it's about using AI to deepen the human relationship between stylist and client, not dissolve it.The Say-Do Ratio — One of the episode's most memorable concepts: why the gap between what leaders promise and what they deliver is the single clearest measure of trust — and how Baer used it to rebuild confidence with his team, board, and investors.Patience Is Concentrated Strength — Ramsden introduces a Bruce Lee-sourced framework for the hardest moment in any transformation: when the work is done, the system is in motion, and the results haven't shown up yet.If you're leading through change — or about to be handed a situation that demands it — this episode gives you both the map and the honest account of what the terrain actually feels like. The distance between strategy and conviction is where most turnarounds are won or lost.To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders build resilient, high-performing teams, visit aiirconsulting.com.
- Sep 3, 20261h 6m
The Power of the Quiet Voice: Lessons on Leadership from Bristol Myers Squibb
What does it take to lead well when nothing is predictable anymore? According to Amanda Poole, Chief People Officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, and Vincent Garufi, VP of HR Innovation, Strategy and Operations at BMS, the answer isn't having a playbook. It's transparency, authenticity, and knowing how to make room for every voice in the room, even the quiet ones.In this episode of A Podcast About Leadership, AIIR CEO Dr. Jonathan Kirschner sits down with Amanda and Vinnie, two senior HR leaders at Bristol Myers Squibb, a 34,000-person company whose mission is transforming patients' lives through science, to talk about what it really takes to lead through change.Amanda shares the story behind Valuably Quiet, a grassroots initiative that started in BMS's research organization to help introverts and quiet contributors show up and add value on their own terms. She's an introvert herself leading a massive global function, and she talks about how that shaped the way BMS now defines high performance. Vinnie brings his own journey from selling power tools to leading HR innovation, and explains why he thinks of himself as a business leader first and an HR leader second.Amanda and Vinnie get into:Why Valuably Quiet became a cultural hallmark instead of just another training moduleThe difference between withholding information to protect people and being genuinely transparentHow to lead when change is always on instead of episodic, and why sorting what you can and can't control matters more than everThe courage it takes to say "I don't know" as a senior leaderHow AI is reshaping the CHRO role from talent steward to workforce architectWhy leadership flexibility, curiosity, and resilience are becoming the core skills for the AI eraWhether you're managing a small team or leading a global function, this is a candid, in the trenches conversation about building a culture where every voice, loud or quiet, can do great work.Topics covered: inclusion and culture, introverted leadership, transparency, change management, HR strategy, AI and the future of work, executive leadership, workforce transformation.To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders build resilience and navigate constant change, visit https://aiirconsulting.com.
- Jul 30, 20261h 12m
The Hidden Skill Every Executive Ignores with Ken Roberts and Jamie Ramsden
What separates a great leader from a merely competent one? According to Ken Roberts, President of Atlas Roofing (and a 30 year veteran of Masco Corporation), and executive coach Jamie Ramsden, the answer isn't intelligence, charisma, or having all the answers. It's humility.In this episode of A Podcast About Leadership, host Jonathan Kirschner sits down with Ken Roberts, president of one of North America's leading building materials manufacturers, and CEO coach Jamie Ramsden, author of Let's Go: How Great Leaders Shape the Future, to talk about why humility is the leadership skill most executives overlook, and why it's so often mistaken for weakness.Ken shares the story of the hardest decision of his career: a gut call made during the COVID supply chain crisis with zero hard data behind it. That moment taught him a lesson that's stuck with him ever since. If you're the smartest person in the room, you probably haven't built a great team.Ken and Jamie get into:Why real humility means staying open to being wrong, not staying quietThe difference between delegation and abdicationHow to avoid getting pulled into "triangulation" and build genuinely collaborative teamsThe courage it takes to make high stakes decisions without complete informationWhy energy management, not time management, is the skill nobody warns you aboutHow self awareness and coachability separate leaders who keep growing from those who stall outWhether you're a first time manager or a seasoned executive, this is a grounded, real world conversation about how humility, self awareness, and courage add up to stronger teams and better decisions.Topics covered: executive leadership, humility in leadership, decision making under uncertainty, team building, executive coaching, energy management, servant leadership, CEO advice.
- Jul 14, 202619 min
The Hard Call: If You Love Your People, Can You Let Them Go? Leadership Lessons with Jamie Ramsden
Can real love for your people and the hard decision to let one of them go ever coexist? That's the paradox at the center of this bonus episode of A Podcast About Leadership, where host Jonathan Kirschner, CEO of AIIR Consulting, sits down with his close friend Jamie Ramsden — a former CEO with 25 years of international business experience, executive leadership coach, and author of Let's Go: How Great Leaders Shape the Future. Across a wide-ranging conversation touching life, love, and leadership, the two trade personal stories about the moments that test a leader's identity most: not the strategy decisions, but the human ones.Failure Isn't the Opposite of Success — Jamie explains why the accomplishments people admire most are usually "hatched from failure," and why failure only becomes a gift when it's examined instead of avoided.The Sleepless Night Before the First Firing — Jamie opens up about the distress of letting go of an employee for the first time, and the surprising clarity that followed once the decision was made.Can You Love Someone and Still Let Them Go? — The conversation's central dilemma: true love is unconditional, but true leadership means actualizing a vision through others — even when that means prioritizing the business over an individual's feelings.Culture Is What You Tolerate — Jonathan shares the costly lesson of giving an underperformer "one more quarter," and the two high performers he lost as a result.Compassion and Hard Calls Aren't Opposites — Why the "how" matters more than the "what," and how leaders can treat people with empathy and sympathy while still making the tough calls no one else can make for them.This bonus episode is for any leader who has ever hesitated to make a hard call out of fear of hurting someone they care about. Jamie and Jonathan make the case that real compassion isn't avoiding the hard conversation — it's how you show up inside it. To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders navigate the hardest calls in business and in life, visit aiirconsulting.com.
- Jun 18, 20261h 10m
From Have-To to Want-To: What 50+ Years of Leadership Looks Like with Peter Arthur Smith
Most organizations are running on the wrong fuel — and they don't know it. The tools leaders reach for most instinctively — competition, incentives, fear, measurement — may be the very things quietly killing the culture they're trying to build.Peter Arthur Smith has spent more than five decades studying, practicing, and quietly refining a theory of leadership that cuts against nearly everything business schools teach. A former British Army captain turned organizational consultant, Smith founded Leadership Solutions in Manhattan in 1994 and has advised leaders across nearly ninety countries. In this episode of A Podcast About Leadership, host Jonathan Kirschner, CEO of AIIR Consulting, sits down with Smith to explore the ideas behind his forthcoming book, The Enlightened Leader.Have To vs. Want To — Smith's central argument: most organizations operate on extrinsic pressure (his SIGFAM model — competition, incentives, goals, fear, accountability, measurement), when the highest-performing cultures are built on intrinsic motivators like purpose, camaraderie, and autonomy.The Five Curses of Conventional Management — Bureaucracy, hierarchy, efficiency obsession, negative messaging, and corruption — Smith names the forces that quietly hollow out organizations, and offers a concrete antidote to each.Periscope Time — Why the most important discipline a leadership team can develop is a structured, recurring practice of looking beyond today — and exactly how to build it.Leading from the Center, Not the Front — Drawing on military history and his own experience commanding troops, Smith makes the case that the most effective leaders are orchestrators, not heroes — and what happens when that distinction collapses.AI as a Leadership Symptom — A striking provocation: the rise of AI as a workforce replacement may be less about technology than about leaders who never learned to lead people in the first place.If you've ever suspected that the pressure-driven management culture around you is producing compliance but not commitment, this conversation will give you language — and a framework — to change it. The gap between conventional management and enlightened leadership is not abstract. It is the difference between an organization that winds itself up and one that slowly runs down.To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders build resilient, high-performing teams, visit aiirconsulting.com.
- Jun 4, 20261h 9m
TOPGUN Leadership: Lessons from Naval Aviation's Elite
What separates the best from everyone else isn't talent — it's what they do with failure. At the Navy's elite TOPGUN school, thirty percent of training flights end in failure by design. The question is never whether you'll fall short. The question is how you respond when you do.In this conversation, host Jonathan Kirschner, CEO of AIIR Consulting, welcomes three veterans of naval aviation to A Podcast About Leadership: Mike "Wizzard" McCabe, a former Top Gun instructor, J. Todd Ross, who served as Top Gun's intelligence officer after nearly four years of flying in the backseat of an F-14, Traci Ross, one of the very first women to deploy on a U.S. aircraft carrier in a combat role. All three are now executive coaches who bring the culture of carrier aviation directly into the boardroom."We, Not Me" as a Culture Strategy — Top Gun's legendary patch means nothing if you're playing for yourself; Wizzard breaks down why culture always defeats tactics, and how one founding principle has held for five decades.The Top Gun Debrief — Goods and others, never strengths and weaknesses: J. Todd unpacks the debrief framework that built a learning culture across an entire military branch — and why civilian organizations still resist it.The Weight of Being First — Traci Ross on carrying the burden of representation, the isolation of being the only woman in a squadron, and why that experience made her a better coach for leaders under scrutiny.Listen, Learn, Then Lead — Why Wizzard's three-word sequence is deliberately ordered, and what happens to organizations when leaders skip the first two steps.Crisis as a Leadership Laboratory — J. Todd Ross on his assignment after 9/11, and why being physically present — with no agenda except care — is sometimes the only leadership that matters.If you lead a team and have wondered why excellence is so hard to sustain, this episode offers a precise and practical answer. The culture that built TOPGUN can be built anywhere — and these three coaches will show you how.To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders build resilient, high-performing teams, visit aiirconsulting.com.
- May 21, 20261h 8m
Bricks, Culture & The Building Blocks of Leadership with Brickworks' Steve Bell & Jamie Ramsden
What does a brick — one of humanity's oldest building materials — have to teach us about leading through disruption, integration, and change? The answer turns out to be more than you'd expect, and it starts with the paradox at the heart of great leadership: enduring strength combined with the willingness to adapt.Steve Bell is President of Brickworks North America, the US subsidiary of Australia's largest brick manufacturer — a company producing over 300 million bricks a year across eight facilities. His path to the top is anything but conventional: Steve came up through HR, which gives him a rare lens on people, culture, and what it actually takes to build an organization that lasts. He joins Jonathan Kirschner, CEO of AIIR Consulting, on A Podcast About Leadership alongside Jamie Ramsden — former CEO, author of How to Shape a Better Future, and one of AIIR's elite executive coaches — who has coached Steve through the transition from trusted advisor to final decision-maker.Culture Is Never a Finished Project — Steve and Jamie dismantle the dangerous myth that M&A integration has an end date, and explain why treating culture like a spreadsheet exercise is the fastest path to silent organizational collapse.From HR Advisor to the Hot Seat — Steve reflects on what the move from HR leader to president actually cost him psychologically, and why the hardest shift wasn't operational knowledge — it was learning to own the decision.Humble, Hungry, and Even-Keeled — Jamie unpacks the three qualities he looks for in a leader worth betting on, and explains why the most dangerous executive in any room is the one who needs the credit.Compassion Without Paralysis — Both Steve and Jamie confront the uncomfortable truth about tolerating the wrong person in the wrong role, and why the truly compassionate act is often the hardest one.The Three Domains of Sustainable Leadership — Steve shares the personal framework he uses to keep work, family, and self from falling out of balance — and why all three require active investment, not just good intentions.This one is for any leader who has ever confused loyalty with leadership, or mistaken a quiet team for an aligned one. You'll finish this conversation with a clearer sense of what it means to build something that lasts — in business, and in life.To learn more about how AIIR Consulting helps leaders build resilient, high-performing teams, visit aiirconsulting.com.
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About A Podcast About Leadership
Leadership has the power to shape the future — of work and of the world. But in a period of history increasingly defined by complexity, uncertainty, and change, the skills and mindsets leaders need to succeed are shifting faster than ever. A Podcast About Leadership faces this challenge head-on, offering the insights and inspiration leaders need to navigate change and shape a better future. Each episode, we speak with leaders and leading thinkers in business, leadership, psychology, neuroscience, and human performance. Together, we explore the the challenges leaders face today— from leading through volatility and uncertainty to developing the empathy, resilience, and strategic vision required to thrive in the years ahead. Whether you’re an individual leader looking to increase your impact or a human resources (HR), talent, or learning and development leader shaping the future of leadership across your organization, A Podcast About Leadership has the information, inspiration, and practical application you need. Meet the Host Dr. Jonathan Kirschner is the founder and CEO of AIIR Consulting, a global authority on executive coaching and leadership development. A psychologist and entrepreneur, Jonathan has nearly two decades of experience helping leaders at the world’s most respected organizations accelerate performance, transform cultures, and unlock human potential. His expertise sits at the intersection of behavioral science, business strategy, and technology, making him a sought-after advisor to executives navigating complexity and change.
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