Leadership, Rewritten Podcast · 2025-09-14 · 19 min
Maya's team was burning out despite doing good work - they were overfunctioning within a system that hadn't evolved to support their growth. Working with her mentor over a napkin sketch, Maya developed Praxis Q, a framework that reframes development as integral to role design rather than separate from it. The core insight centers on four quadrants: Disciplined Delivery, Strategic Fluency, Adaptive Growth, and Relational Influence. Maya implemented this through dual-role structures (vertical execution and horizontal influence), self-enrollment system job descriptions (reframed as developmental invitations rather than task lists), and 90-day sprints with targeted quadrant-aligned probes. The episode walks through concrete examples of four leaders - Jo, Anil, Priya, and Kieran - each working intensively on one quadrant, discovering how addressing a single growth edge creates ripple effects across the entire system. Jo shifted from being the bottleneck to enabling team ownership; Anil moved from smoothing over tensions to naming them; Priya emerged from strategic invisibility to visible leadership; Kieran built relational infrastructure through vulnerability and learning circles. The result wasn't organizational disruption but a team that breathed in sync, with development becoming the engine that powered the organization rather than an added burden.
Praxis Q is a framework of 90-day developmental sprints where leaders focus on one quadrant at a time (Disciplined Delivery, Strategic Fluency, Adaptive Growth, or Relational Influence), using targeted probes and self-enrollment job descriptions to embed growth directly into role design rather than treating it as separate work.
By redesigning roles themselves to naturally stretch people across the four quadrants through dual structures (vertical execution and horizontal influence) and reframing job descriptions as developmental invitations that name growth edges, systemic pressures, and the person the role invites them to become.
Self-enrollment job descriptions frame roles as developmental invitations with three parts - the self (personal growth edge), the role (dual accountability), and the system (real-world pressures and tensions) - creating a mirror for self-awareness rather than a list of isolated tasks.
When leaders addressed their specific growth edge through focused probes and concrete deliverables (like Jo releasing rhythm, Anil naming tensions, Priya stepping into visibility, or Kieran building learning circles), their development became relational infrastructure that rippled across the entire system, making the organization more adaptive and resilient.
Rather than being a burden or nice-to-have, development integrated into role design made the work itself more coherent and livable, reduced duplication and workload, increased shared insight, and created the conditions for others to grow without adding more tasks to anyone's plate.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Welcome to episode six of the Leadership, Rewritten podcast. What you’re about to hear is an AI-generated narration of the full text of Chapter Six: Designing for Development. This chapter is longer and more detailed than the Substack essays you may already have read. It tells the full story of Maya’s turning point: how she discovered that leadership development doesn’t need to be bolted onto the side of work - it can be embedded inside the work itself. You’ll hear about: * The napkin moment that gave rise to the Praxis Q quadrants. * Maya’s creation of Self-in-Role-in-System briefs - developmental job descriptions that act as mirrors rather than blueprints. * The four developmental arcs of Jo, Anil, Priya, and Kieran, each stretching into a different Praxis Q quadrant. * The emergence of the Praxis Q Growth Cycle - one quadrant, one stretch posture, one deliverable, one ripple. Please note: this is an AI-generated podcast, created directly from the full written chapter. It’s an experiment in making the complete text more accessible in audio form, and the tone is different from a live conversation.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Have you ever felt like, um, your team is doing really incredible work, pushing hard, but everyone's just running on fumes?
Speaker B: Yeah, it's that feeling, isn't it? Leaders burning out systems, sort of feeling stuck.
Speaker A: Exactly. And you know, genuine growth for people. It seems like this extra burdensome task on top of everything else.
Speaker B: So common and exhausting.
Speaker A: It really is. So today our deep dive is going to tackle a really crucial question. How do you foster genuine leadership development and growth? Um, not as some add on, but as an embedded natural part of the work itself. Mhm. Our source material for this is some really powerful Excerpts from Chapter 6, Designing for Development. When growth becomes the work.
Speaker B: And this isn't just theory, right?
Speaker A: No, not at all. It's based on the actual journey of a leader, Maya and her mentor. How they face these exact challenges and well, how they transform things.
Speaker B: Sounds fascinating.
Speaker A: So get ready. Our mission today is to unpack this uh, deceptively simple but actually incredibly powerful framework called Praxis Q. Praxis Q. Okay. Yeah. This framework, it helped turn a struggling team into a truly self developing system. We're going to find some pretty, uh, profound aha moments I think, about leadership team design and how our own growth can actually fuel the organization.
Speaker B: And what's really powerful here, I think, is that this isn't about, you know, grand top down changes or needing huge budgets.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: It's more subtle. It's about these, uh, shifts in how roles are actually designed and how people are invited to grow within their daily work.
Speaker A: Within the work itself.
Speaker B: Exactly. So if you've ever felt like your role demands more than maybe you feel equipped for, or if you're a leader trying to empower your team sustainability sustainably. Well, this deep dive offers a really compelling and practical alternative to the old ways.
Speaker A: That pressure you mentioned, that edge of burnout. Yeah, it really does sound exhausting. So let's get into it. What did Maya herself see as the sort of core problem in her team?
Speaker B: Well, she'd seen the pattern before. It's almost universal, isn't it? The source nails it. Leaders grow, teams stretch. Systems don't shift. Ah.
Speaker A: Uh, okay. The system lagged.
Speaker B: Precisely. And the key thing here is that the symptoms weren't about lack of effort. People were doing good work, definitely, but they were straining.
Speaker A: Burning bright then burning out.
Speaker B: Exactly that phrase. Burning bright then burning out. They were over functioning, maybe underclaiming their influence and uh, performing clarity.
Speaker A: Performing clarity, what does that mean exactly?
Speaker B: Like acting like they had all the answers, even when they desperately needed permission to just be in Process, you know, still figuring things out.
Speaker A: Got it.
Speaker B: So pretending, almost, in a way, yeah. And Maya realized it wasn't about finding more superheroes. She needed co developers of the system. People who could evolve the structure, the processes as they grew, not just operate within the existing ones.
Speaker A: Right, right. It sounds like she really got the problem, but was kind of stuck on the how. Uh, what was the specific question she was grappling with that led to the breakthrough?
Speaker B: Exactly. The problem was clear. The solution, not so much. The source talks about this late night dinner she had with her mentor. They were debriefing a stalled initiative, and she was wrestling with this really tough, fundamental question. How do we actually grow people? Inside the pressure. That's the key. Inside it.
Speaker A: Not separate from it.
Speaker B: Right. Not through coaching, necessarily, but through structure. She wanted a systemic fix, not just, you know, individual band aids.
Speaker A: And then came the famous napkin moment. I understand it did.
Speaker B: Apparently, her mentor was a visibly, uh, weary, long day. Didn't launch into a lecture or some complex model. No, no. He just reached for a napkin, drew a simple cross. Four words, one in each quadrant. Core, corporate, talent, and relational.
Speaker A: Simple as that?
Speaker B: Uh, simple as that. And right in the middle, he wrote a question. Where are you listening? And where are you missing?
Speaker A: Wow.
Speaker B: Yeah. Slid it across the table, apparently. Almost muttered it.
Speaker A: That's it.
Speaker B: That's the work. Not fixing, listening, helping people notice what they've stopped paying attention to.
Speaker A: That's powerful. Just listening.
Speaker B: And the sketch, you know, born out of weariness. It cut through Maya's own fatigue. Why? Because it wasn't some complicated model. It was, uh, a. A mirror.
Speaker A: A mirror.
Speaker B: It focused on the leader's internal state within the system, not just the system in isolation. That simple drawing held the seeds of a whole, whole new way of seeing things.
Speaker A: So much packed into such a simple image. How did Maya then take that insight, that mirror and turn it into something, well, actionable for her team?
Speaker B: Okay, this is where it gets really compelling. I think Maya took that napkin sketch and evolved it. She gave the quadrants names that were more about action and impact.
Speaker A: Made it more concrete.
Speaker B: Exactly. So core, for instance, became disciplined delivery. That's moving from just a concept to the actual muscle of consistent, credible execution.
Speaker A: Makes sense.
Speaker B: Corporate turned into strategic fluency. That's that crucial sense making ability. Right. Shaping decisions within the wider organization.
Speaker A: Uh.
Speaker B: Uh-huh.
Speaker A: Huh. Seeing the bigger picture.
Speaker B: Then talent became adaptive growth. This focuses right on that inner and interpersonal space where real learning, real evolution happens.
Speaker A: The people part. Yeah. And relational deepened into relational influence. So emphasizing Building trust, using power. Ethically driving change through connection. Not just having relationships, but influencing through them.
Speaker B: Okay, so clearer, more action oriented quadrants. What else?
Speaker A: Well, on top of these, Maya introduced a dual role structure. This is key. Each leader had a vertical role. That's their formal authority. Execution in their home market. Yeah, you know, direct output, clear accountability.
Speaker B: Standard stuff.
Speaker A: Kind of. But then there was also a horizontal role. This focused on informal leadership. Influence across a functional stream or peer group.
Speaker B: Ah. Uh, across silos.
Speaker A: Precisely. This was about meaning making, building trust, fostering evolution across those boundaries. Yeah, and the genius part, the score says, is that this wasn't just operational tweaking. It was developmental by design.
Speaker B: Developmental by design. I like that.
Speaker A: It was built specifically to stretch people naturally across those four quadrants.
Speaker B: And this intentional weaving of development right into the roles, that. That's crucial, isn't it? It's not about adding more developmental tasks onto an already full plate.
Speaker A: Right. Because those always get dropped first.
Speaker B: Always. What Maya did was design the roles themselves to naturally stretch people across these four dimensions. So these reframed quadrants, the dual roles, they really set the stage for her whole approach. Uh, Praxis Q. Praxis Q. Yeah. At its heart, it's this recurring cycle. 90 day sprints designed for continuous development. And it uses two really important tools. These developmental briefs and targeted quadrant aligned probes.
Speaker A: Okay, let's talk about those tools. Another really clever innovation Maya came up with. Were these developmental briefs, or as the source calls them, um, self enrollment system Job descriptions.
Speaker B: That's quite a mouthful.
Speaker A: It is, but it's descriptive. These were completely different from your standard dry job description. They were framed as developmental invitations.
Speaker B: Invitations? How so?
Speaker A: They were designed to help each person see what their role was really asking of them. And crucially, who they might become in the process.
Speaker B: Ah. Uh, okay. More holistic.
Speaker A: Totally. Each brief had three parts. First, the self. This spelled out the leader's personal growth edge. Like the pattern they needed to stretch or maybe soften. It was the version of themselves that the role was inviting forward.
Speaker B: M. Personalize.
Speaker A: Very. Second, the role. This outlined their dual responsibility. That vertical execution and the horizontal evolution. Clearly stating what they were accountable for and accountable to.
Speaker B: Got it. Clarity on expectations.
Speaker A: And finally, the system. This addressed the real world conditions, you know, the ambient pressures, the unseen contradictions, even what the role is doing to you.
Speaker B: Wow. So acknowledging the context.
Speaker A: Exactly. It was this profound mirror, helping leaders see themselves and their work within the bigger picture, not just as a list of isolated tasks.
Speaker B: You know, imagine your own job description, reframed like that. Not just listing tasks, but actually naming the tensions you're meant to hold the person you're invited to become through the work.
Speaker A: It's a completely different perspective.
Speaker B: It really is. It's such a powerful mirror for self awareness, for intentional growth. It gives you a clear map for evolving right within the daily grind. Truly transformative potential there.
Speaker A: So with these dual roles and these really insightful developmental briefs in place, Maya then launched the core of her framework. The Praxis Q sessions.
Speaker B: Right. The 90 day sprints.
Speaker A: Exactly. Structured as these 90 day sprints with each leader focusing intently on just one quadrant at a time. And this is important. Maya didn't start by giving feedback.
Speaker B: No. What did she do?
Speaker A: She started with careful observation. Then she offered these quadren aligned probes, basically targeted questions to help each leader find their own unique stretch point, guiding
Speaker B: them to see it for themselves.
Speaker A: Precisely. Let's, uh, let's look at some examples of these individual journeys within the sprints. They really bring the whole thing to life.
Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. Let's dive into those.
Speaker A: Okay. Take Jo. Her focus was disciplined delivery. Now, she was known as a safe pair of hands. Right. Someone who executed flawlessly. Very. But the source describes her as becoming brittle, uh, growing no one and basically burning out because she was the rhythm.
Speaker B: Ah, the bottleneck.
Speaker A: Kind of. Yeah. Maya's probes help Josie the deeper issue. Questions like do your people learn as they deliver or just repeat what works?
Speaker B: Ooh, good question.
Speaker A: And if you stepped away for four weeks, what would break? Not in outcomes. In ownership.
Speaker B: That hits deep. Focusing on ownership, not just results.
Speaker A: Exactly. So. So Jo's focus became release. The rhythm. Her concrete deliverable was to co create a, uh, ways of working playbook with her team.
Speaker B: Involving them in the solution.
Speaker A: Right. And the outcome. The team actually adopted a new rhythm. Joe's voice, interestingly, became slower, more certain. She started sharing practices with her peers.
Speaker B: So she shifted her leadership style massively.
Speaker A: Notice how her breakthrough wasn't about doing more work, but. But about changing how she leads. Shifting from being the sole executor to enabling others ownership.
Speaker B: Yeah. That reflection from her says it all, doesn't it?
Speaker A: It really does. I used to think people followed me because I had the answers. Now I think they're watching how I hold questions.
Speaker B: Wow. That's a huge shift from doing the work to designing how the work gets done.
Speaker A: Exactly. Then there was an L. Focus on strategic fluency. Now, he was described as deeply relational. Good connector.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: But the source points out he rarely names the real tension. He can make anything Sound coherent, You know, smooth things over. But he rarely said what he actually thought.
Speaker B: Ah, uh, buffering discomfort.
Speaker A: You got it. Buffering discomfort. That might actually hold insight. So Maya probed with things like are you helping the team make meaning or just stay aligned?
Speaker B: Subtle but important difference.
Speaker A: Huge difference. And where are you shaping direction versus just smoothing tension?
Speaker B: Making him confront his own impact.
Speaker A: Right. His focus became frame to frame. And his deliverable was a, ah, quarterly strategic pattern brief outlining maybe three to five key adaptive tensions the team was facing.
Speaker B: So naming the elephants in the room.
Speaker A: Basically, yes. And Aneel's story really highlights the power of naming reality, even when it feels uncomfortable. By framing those real tensions, he actually unlocked his relational influence.
Speaker B: How so?
Speaker A: Well, his peers started seeking his framing because he was articulating what they all kind of felt, but maybe couldn't quite put into words.
Speaker B: Uh, uh, he gave voice to the shared reality.
Speaker A: Exactly. It reminds us that real leadership often isn't about having all the answers. Right. It's about having the courage to name the questions, the shared realities.
Speaker B: Like Anil said.
Speaker A: Yeah. I thought if I said what I really saw, I'd lose people. But it turns out they were waiting for someone to say it first.
Speaker B: That's really insightful. People often crave that clarity. Even if it's tough.
Speaker A: Absolutely. Okay, next. Priya. Her focus was adaptive growth. Her challenge was different. She was highly perceptive. Saw a lot.
Speaker B: Okay, so insightful.
Speaker A: Very. But she often holds back. The source calls it strategic invisibility. It was designed to keep her safe, maybe avoid conflict or scrutiny, but now is keeping her small.
Speaker B: Hmm. Playing it safe became limiting.
Speaker A: Totally. Maya asked her things like, is your insight becoming influence, or is it staying internal?
Speaker B: Good one. Impact versus observation.
Speaker A: And who loses out when you downplay what you know? That's a kicker, isn't it?
Speaker B: Yeah. Reframing it as a loss for others.
Speaker A: So Priya's focus was become seen in service of others. Her deliverable was to pilot a new capacity framework and present it visibly herself stepping into the spotlight, taking a risk big time. And Priya's journey is such a powerful reminder that sometimes our greatest strengths, like perceptiveness, can become constraints if we aren't careful.
Speaker B: Yeah, that strategic invisibility maybe, uh, useful once, was now holding her back and
Speaker A: holding the team back. By stepping into visibility and sharing her learning, it didn't just help her, it immediately served others. It shows that our individual growth isn't just for us. Right. It's actually a gift to the system.
Speaker B: It becomes a resource for everyone.
Speaker A: Exactly. Her breakthrough framing was I stopped asking who am I to lead? And started asking what does the system need me to hold?
Speaker B: Shifting from self doubt to system need. Very powerful, isn't it?
Speaker A: Okay. Finally, Kieran focus on relational influence. He was described as brilliant but private.
Speaker B: Ah.
Speaker A: Uh.
Speaker B: The introvert pattern perhaps.
Speaker A: Maybe preferred solitude over performance. His constraint was identified as an avoidance of interpersonal heat. Didn't like conflict or difficult conversations.
Speaker B: Understandable, but limiting for influence.
Speaker A: Definitely. Maya's probes for him included. Are people sharing truth with you or just updates?
Speaker B: Oof. Surface. Uh, level versus real talk.
Speaker A: Exactly. And do others feel part of your
Speaker B: work or subject to it, involved or imposed upon? Big difference.
Speaker A: Huge. So his focus became convene before you conclude. His deliverable was launching a regional resilience learning circle. A space for sharing stories, mistakes, those still not sure moments.
Speaker B: Creating psychological safety.
Speaker A: Precisely. And Karen's shift is so insightful because it shows that building relational infrastructure isn't just about being, you know, friendly or sociable.
Speaker B: It's deeper than that.
Speaker A: Much deeper. It's about creating channels for honest, sometimes messy sense making together. By convening before concluding, he became this vital conduit for the system to understand itself better.
Speaker B: He built trust through vulnerability, essentially.
Speaker A: Exactly. He found that people don't actually want a perfect leader. They want someone who acknowledges the shared struggle. His realization was people don't want a perfect leader. They want someone who knows. We're all improvising.
Speaker B: I love that we're all improvising. That creates connection.
Speaker A: It really does. It creates trust and resilience in a way that perceived perfection ever could. What's so fascinating when you look at all these examples is how working on just that one thing for each leader, it created this positive ripple effect.
Speaker B: Yeah. Not just in their target quadrant.
Speaker A: No, across all four quadrants and across the entire team and system. Their individual development wasn't siloed. It wasn't some separate training exercise. It literally became the relational infrastructure.
Speaker B: Making the whole organization more adaptive, more resilient. Absolutely. And the transformation in Maya's team, it wasn't some huge disruptive overhaul, was it?
Speaker A: Not at all. The source says the team literally began to breathe in sync development didn't need some elaborate, complex strategy document.
Speaker B: It needed frames.
Speaker A: Right. Clear frames people could step into. And roles designed in a way that inherently taught people how to lead differently.
Speaker B: It really proves that growth, when it's done right like this, isn't extra effort. It actually makes the work itself more coherent. The load becomes more livable.
Speaker A: Yeah, it lightens the load rather Than adding to it.
Speaker B: That's the breakthrough, isn't it? Seeing development as an engine that powers the organization forward, not just another task on the to do list.
Speaker A: And the results were tangible, right? They were measurable. Joe's delivery cadence started guiding operations in other markets, rippling out. Yeah. Anil's strategic frames were being quoted in senior planning meetings. Priya's capacity tools were actually being used to onboard new leads. Practical impact and Kiran's learning circles. They became this invaluable early warning system for the region. Duplication dropped, workloads actually eased. Shared insight went way up.
Speaker B: So leaders weren't just growing themselves, they were actively creating the conditions for others to grow.
Speaker A: Exactly. All without adding more stuff to their already full plates. It was integrated.
Speaker B: Embedded.
Speaker A: As we wrap up this deep dive, then let's just quickly recap the key takeaways for you, the listener.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: First, there's the incredible power of designing those dual roles, vertical and horizontal, to foster natural development.
Speaker B: Mhm. That built in stretch.
Speaker A: Second, the truly transformative potential of those self enrol in system job descriptions. Turning a dry document into a developmental invitation. Yeah.
Speaker B: Ah, that reframing is huge.
Speaker A: Third, how focusing on just one specific developmental stretch like Joe releasing the rhythm, can create this powerful ripple effect across all aspects of your leadership. Touching all four quadrants, one thing leads to broader growth. And finally, maybe the biggest idea, the growth isn't an add on. It's not, uh, a nice to have. It's embedded right within the work itself, making the entire system stronger, more coherent, more adaptive.
Speaker B: So maybe a final thought to leave you with. Consider your own current role right now and the pressures you're facing. Which of those four quadrants? Discipline, delivery, strategic fluency, adaptive growth or relational influence? Which one feels like your next critical growth edge?
Speaker A: Where's the heat for you?
Speaker B: Exactly. And then what's the smallest, most concrete thing you could do, maybe in the next 90 days to address it. Not just for yourself, but thinking about that ripple effect, how could it also benefit others in your system?
Speaker A: That's a great question to reflect on. We really hope this deep dive has given you a fresh perspective. A, uh, way to see how growth isn't just about what you do, but really about who you are becoming in the process.
Speaker B: Keep exploring.
Speaker A: Keep growing. And thank you for diving deep with us today.
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