The Leadership Project Podcast · 2026-06-30 · 29 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
26 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Leadership is not a collection of tactics or one-size-fits-all frameworks - it's a deeply human practice rooted in sense-making. Spiers draws from three monthly conversations to identify a common thread: people facing change, growth, pressure, or uncertainty aren't just processing information; they're asking fundamental questions about safety, belonging, competence, and agency. Mike Krupit's adaptive leadership reminds us that what worked in a startup doesn't work at scale, and that leaders must continuously ask what each person needs - direction, coaching, autonomy, protection, or challenge. Graeme Cowan's caring leadership framework progresses from self-care (a leader's mood is contagious) to crew care (psychological safety and real connection) to red zone care (noticing and supporting those struggling). Huw Thomas emphasizes that change doesn't happen through announcements or emails; it requires conversation, not just communication. People respond to how change threatens their certainty, control, competence, or identity - not just spreadsheets. Drawing on Jonathan Haidt's work, Spiers notes that intuition precedes reason in humans; we feel before we explain. The synthesis yields three leadership imperatives: Adapt (requiring humility), Care (requiring presence), and Connect (requiring courage to move beyond broadcasting). All three serve the deeper purpose of creating conditions where people feel seen, heard, valued, and able to make sense of their world.
People aren't purely rational; they respond emotionally to what change threatens - certainty, control, competence, status, identity, or belonging. When those things feel threatened, people respond as human beings with emotions, not as logical processors of information, even if the spreadsheet makes sense.
Communication is broadcasting information - emails, slides, town halls, FAQs. Conversation is dialogue where people can name their concerns, explore what the change means to them, and make sense of it together. People need sense-making through conversation, not more noise through communication.
Leadership must evolve with context: the close, hands-on approach of a startup founder doesn't scale; a technical expert promoted to leadership must stop being the smartest person in the room; a senior leader must create space for others rather than remaining hands-on. Each stage requires different capabilities - coaching, delegation, and knowing when to step in or step back.
Caring leadership means creating conditions where people can sustainably do their best work - it progresses from self-care (managing your own mood and presence), to crew care (psychological safety, real connection, noticing people), to red zone care (recognizing when someone struggles and responding with compassion). It's not soft; it's about sustainable high performance.
People are asking: Am I safe? Do I still matter? Do I belong here? Am I capable of succeeding in this new reality? Do I have any control? Can I trust the people leading me? Do they see me, hear me, value me? Leadership matters most when these fundamental sense-making questions are unanswered.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode offers a coherent synthesis framework (adapt, care, connect) and the sense-making lens on leadership is a useful reframe, but the majority of the runtime is repetitive elaboration of well-known ideas with very little that a reasonably experienced leader hasn't encountered before. Padding is heavy.
communication is not the same as conversation
people are not simply resisting the information, they are responding to what the change means for them
The content recycles established concepts - adaptive leadership, psychological safety, caring leadership, communication vs. dialogue - without meaningfully advancing them. The application of Haidt's 'The Righteous Mind' to organizational change is the one briefly interesting move, but it is underdeveloped. The closing tagline epitomises the generic tone.
leadership is not about the title you hold, it's about the positive difference you make in the lives of others
people need to feel seen, heard, and valued
This is a solo synthesising episode; there are no guests present and therefore no practitioner expertise to evaluate directly. The three referenced guests are named but their credentials and actual insights are paraphrased at a very high level of abstraction.
This month we had Mike Krupit, Graeme Cowan, and Huw Thomas return to the show.
The episode is almost entirely abstract - no companies, no metrics, no dollar figures, no case studies, no timelines, and no data points. The sole concrete external reference is a single mention of Jonathan Haidt's book, which is not substantively unpacked.
This brings me to Jonathan Haidt's work in "The Righteous Mind" which has been influencing some of my thinking lately
we're analyzing hundreds of conversations with leaders, thinkers, authors, psychologists, researchers, and practitioners from all around the world
Being a solo cast, there is no interviewing, no follow-up questions, and no opportunity for pushback or productive disagreement. The host uses rhetorical questions as a structural device, but this substitutes for rather than demonstrates conversational craft.
What does this person need from me right now? Do they need direction? Do they need coaching? Do they need autonomy?
ask yourself, Where have I communicated but not yet created conversation
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Two people can face the same change and walk away with totally different stories: one feels opportunity, the other feels threat. That gap is where leadership lives. We step back and synthesize three conversations into a simple but demanding framework for modern leadership: Adapt, Care, Connect and the deeper idea underneath it all that leadership is helping people make sense of their world. We talk about adaptive leadership as your context shifts: startup to scale up, stability to disruption, expert teams to developing teams. Instead of replaying the style that made you successful last year, we explore how to create the kind of environment where people can learn through experience, scrape their knees, and build judgment while still being protected from real danger. The question that keeps coming back is simple: what does this person need from me right now? We also dig into caring leadership and why well being and performance are inseparable. We unpack self care, crew care, and red zone care, plus the small, everyday moments that build psychological safety and trust. Then we turn to change leadership and the crucial distinction between communication and conversation.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
1 - > Mick Spiers: Have you ever noticed that two people can 2 - > experience the exact same change in completely different ways? 3 - > One person sees opportunity, another sees threat. One person 4 - > feels energized, another feels anxious, uncertain, or even 5 - > invisible. And have you ever wondered why the same leadership 6 - > style that works beautifully in one situation can completely 7 - > fail in another.
8 - > This month on The Leadership Project, I had three 9 - > conversations that on the surface could have been seen as 10 - > three quite different topics. 11 - > And today is a solo cast where we bring the synthesis of all 12 - > three of those conversations together to help it make sense. 13 - > Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. Today 14 - > is a solo cast where we bring together all of the guests that 15 - > we've had on the show this month and look for synthesis.
What 16 - > were the common threads? What were the things that help us 17 - > make sense of the world, and how can we put those things into 18 - > action? This month we had Mike Krupit, Graeme Cowan, and Huw 19 - > Thomas return to the show. 20 - > With Mike, we explored how adaptive leadership, 21 - > organizational growth, founder mindset, and the challenge of 22 - > knowing when to step in and when to step back can influence your 23 - > leadership.
24 - > With Graeme Cowan, we explored caring leadership, mental 25 - > health, resilience, psychological safety, and what 26 - > it really means to create teams where people can thrive. 27 - > And with Huw Thomas returning to the show for a second time, we 28 - > explored organizational change, dialog, agency, resistance, and 29 - > why communication is not the same as conversation, so three 30 - > very different conversations, three different lenses, but as I 31 - > sat with these interviews, something became increasingly 32 - > clear to me.
33 - > Leadership is not just about making decisions, it's not about 34 - > setting direction, it's not just about communicating the plan. 35 - > Leadership is helping people make sense of their world, and 36 - > that may be one of the most important insights that's 37 - > emerging from a project that we're doing here at The 38 - > Leadership Project. At the moment, we're pulling together a 39 - > body of knowledge, we're analyzing hundreds of 40 - > conversations with leaders, thinkers, authors, 41 - > psychologists, researchers, and practitioners from all around 42 - > the world.
The more we study these conversations, the more we 43 - > study leadership, the more obvious it becomes that 44 - > leadership is not simply a collection of tools, tactics, 45 - > frameworks, or techniques. 46 - > Leadership is a deeply human practice, and human beings are 47 - > not machines. We do not simply receive information, process it 48 - > rationally, and then respond in a predictable way. We are not 49 - > deterministic.
We interpret interpret, we feel, we protect, 50 - > we belong, we make meaning, and we respond not only to what is 51 - > happening but to what we think it means. That is where 52 - > leadership becomes so important Let's start with Mike Krupit. 53 - > One of the most powerful reminders from Mike's episode is 54 - > that leadership has to evolve as because when people are facing 55 - > growth, pressure, uncertainty, context evolves, the way you 56 - > lead a startup is not necessarily the way you lead a 57 - > scale up, the way you lead in change, ambiguity, or emotional 58 - > strain, they are not just asking stability is not necessarily the 59 - > way you lead in disruption, the way you lead.
Lead a team of 60 - > experts is not necessarily the what is happening, they are 61 - > asking deeper questions. What way you lead a team that is 62 - > still developing its confidence, capability, and maturity. This 63 - > may sound obvious when it's said does this mean for me? Am I 64 - > safe?
Do I still matter? Do I out loud, but in practice, many 65 - > leaders fall into the trap of repeating the leadership 66 - > behaviors that made them belong here? Am I capable of 67 - > succeeding in this new reality? 68 - > successful in the past, they think this worked before, so 69 - > I'll keep doing it.
But leadership is contextual. What 70 - > Do I have any control? Can I trust the people leading me, and 71 - > worked yesterday may not be what is needed tomorrow. A founder 72 - > who was once close to every decision may need to learn how 73 - > perhaps most importantly, do they see me, do they hear me, do 74 - > to let go.
A technical expert who was promoted into leadership 75 - > may need to realize that their job is no longer to be the 76 - > they value me? These questions were sitting underneath all 77 - > smartest person in the room. A senior leader who once needed to 78 - > be hands on may need to create space for others to step forward. 79 - > three conversations this month.
80 - > This all reminded me of one of my leadership philosophies, and 81 - > that is the idea that leaders need to create an environment 82 - > where people can scrape their knees but not get hit by a bus. 83 - > This is a useful image, because growth requires experience. 84 - > People do not build judgment by being protected from every 85 - > mistake, they build judgment by making decisions, feeling the 86 - > consequences, reflecting, learning, and trying again. But 87 - > leadership still matters.
We don't abandon people, we don't 88 - > not let them walk blindly into danger. We create boundaries, we 89 - > create clarity, we create support, we allow learning 90 - > without allowing catastrophe. 91 - > That is situational and adaptive leadership, and it requires us 92 - > to keep asking, What does this person need from me right now? 93 - > Do they need direction?
Do they need coaching? Do they need 94 - > autonomy? Do they need protection? Do they need 95 - > challenge?
Do they need reassurance? Do they need me to 96 - > step in or do they need me to step back, and this connects 97 - > beautifully to the broader work that we're doing on The 98 - > Leadership Project body of work. 99 - > One of the patterns that keeps emerging is that leadership is 100 - > not about finding one perfect model and applying it 101 - > everywhere, it's about reading the moment, it's about 102 - > understanding the human beings in front of you. It's about 103 - > knowing that the same action can help one person grow and make 104 - > another person feel abandoned.
105 - > The same level of autonomy can feel empowering to one person 106 - > and terrifying to another. The same challenge can feel 107 - > motivating to one person and overwhelming to another. This is 108 - > why leadership cannot be reduced to a script. It requires 109 - > presence, it requires judgment, it requires humility, and it 110 - > requires the willingness to adapt, so from Mike Krupit, the 111 - > first word of the month is adapt, adapt to the stage, adapt 112 - > to the context, adapt to the person, adapt to the moment.
113 - > Then came my conversation with Graeme Cowan. And Graeme brought 114 - > us to the next essential dimension of leadership, care. 115 - > Now I want to be very clear about something. Caring 116 - > leadership is not soft leadership.
Caring leadership is 117 - > not about lowering standards, it is not about avoiding 118 - > accountability. It is not about wrapping people in cotton wool. 119 - > Caring leadership is about creating the conditions where 120 - > people can sustainably do their best work, and that word 121 - > sustainably matters, because a team can perform under fear for 122 - > a short period of time, a team can push through exhaustion for 123 - > a short period of time. A team can survive poor leadership, 124 - > unclear expectations, or constant pressure for a short 125 - > period of time, but it's not sustainable.
Eventually, people 126 - > burn out, they disconnect, they withdraw, they stop contributing 127 - > ideas, they stop telling the truth, and they do the minimum 128 - > required to survive, or they leave. Graeme's work reminds us 129 - > that well-being and performance are not separate conversations, 130 - > they are deeply connected. If people are emotionally depleted, 131 - > psychologically unsafe, disconnected from each other, or 132 - > struggling in silence, performance will suffer, maybe 133 - > not immediately, but eventually.
134 - > One of the most important ideas from Graeme's work is the 135 - > progression from self-care to crew care to red zone care. 136 - > Self-care comes first. That is not selfish, that's responsible 137 - > as leaders. Our mood is contagious, our stress is 138 - > contagious, our calm is contagious, our presence is 139 - > contagious.
If we are constantly overwhelmed, reactive, 140 - > distracted, or emotionally depleted, that energy ripples 141 - > into the team around us. People notice, they may not say 142 - > anything, but they notice, they notice whether we are present, 143 - > they notice whether we are listening, they notice whether 144 - > we are short-tempered. They notice whether it is safe to 145 - > raise a concern. They notice whether we care.
Then comes crew 146 - > care, the rituals, the habits, and everyday behaviors that 147 - > create human connection, not forced fun, not tokenistic 148 - > wellbeing posters, real connection, knowing people, 149 - > checking in, creating psychological safety, making it 150 - > normal to talk about highlights, hardships, and heroes, making it 151 - > normal to notice each other, and then there is red zone care, the 152 - > ability to notice when someone may be struggling, and to 153 - > respond with compassion, curiosity, and appropriate 154 - > support.
Again, this does not mean we have to all become 155 - > psychologists, but it does mean leaders need to become more 156 - > observant, more human, more willing to ask, more willing to 157 - > listen, more willing to act when something seems different. This 158 - > is another strong pattern emerging in the body of work. 159 - > Great leadership often happens in small moments. 160 - > The conversation after the meeting, the question asked with 161 - > genuine care, the pause before reacting, the moment where 162 - > someone feels safe enough to say, actually I'm not doing that 163 - > well.
The moment where a leader notices the person, not just the 164 - > performance, and this connects to something we have reflected 165 - > on many times, that people need to feel seen, heard, and valued. 166 - > But this month I think that idea deepened, because it's not just 167 - > that people want to feel seen, heard, and valued in a general 168 - > sense. They need to feel seen, heard, and valued when their 169 - > world becomes harder to make sense of, when expectations 170 - > shift, when their role changes, when uncertainty increases, when 171 - > their confidence drops, when they are carrying more than 172 - > others realize, that is when leadership matters most.
173 - > So, from Graeme Cowan, the second word of the month is 174 - > care, care for yourself, care for your crew, care enough to 175 - > notice, care enough to ask, care enough to create an environment 176 - > where people can thrive, not merely survive. Then came Huw 177 - > Thomas, and Huw brought us to the third world for this month. 178 - > Connect, this was Huw's second visit to the show, and in many 179 - > ways it built beautifully on the first conversation. In his first 180 - > conversation, we explored change at the individual level.
What 181 - > happens inside a human being when change arrives? Why does 182 - > change feel threatening? Why do people resist when the rational 183 - > case seems obvious? This time we went to the organizational 184 - > level, and the central lesson was clear: change.
Change does 185 - > not happen through announcements. Change does not 186 - > happen because we sent an email. 187 - > Change does not happen because we held a town hall. Change does 188 - > not happen because we published the slide deck.
Those things may 189 - > be necessary, but they are not sufficient, because 190 - > communication is not the same as conversation. This is such an 191 - > important leadership distinction. Many leaders think 192 - > they have led change because they have explained the change, 193 - > they've explained the strategy, they've explained the business 194 - > case, they've explained the timeline, they've explained the 195 - > benefits, and then they've become frustrated when people do 196 - > not immediately come on the journey, but people are not 197 - > simply resisting the information, they are responding 198 - > to what the change means for them.
A change can threaten 199 - > certainty, it can threaten control, it can threaten 200 - > competence, it can threaten comfort, it can threaten status, 201 - > it can threaten identity, and when those things are 202 - > threatened, people do not respond to spreadsheets, they 203 - > respond as human beings. This brings me to Jonathan Haidt's 204 - > work in "The Righteous Mind" which has been influencing some 205 - > of my thinking lately. One of Haidt's great reminders is that 206 - > human beings are not purely rational creatures who calmly 207 - > reason their way to conclusions.
208 - > Our intuitions often come first, and our reason usually comes 209 - > second. We feel before we explain, we sense before we 210 - > justify, we protect our identity, our group, our 211 - > belonging, and our moral foundations. And then we often 212 - > use reason to defend the conclusion we have already been 213 - > drawn towards. Now, how do we apply that to organizational 214 - > change?
A leader might think they are presenting a rational 215 - > business case, but the person listening may be having a 216 - > completely different internal experience. Will I still have a 217 - > role? Will I still be good at my job? Will I lose influence here?
218 - > Will I lose the relationships I value? Will I be judged if I 219 - > cannot adapt quickly enough? Is this another change being done 220 - > to me rather than with me? That is why communication is not 221 - > always the answer.
Sometimes more communication simply means 222 - > more broadcasting, more slides, more FAQs, more emails, more 223 - > noise. What people often need is not more information, they need 224 - > better sense making, they need conversation, they need dialog, 225 - > they need leaders who are willing to listen to the human 226 - > experience underneath the resistance, and this is where 227 - > Huw's message becomes so powerful. The goal is not to 228 - > eliminate emotion from change.
229 - > The goal is to create spaces where emotions can be named, 230 - > understood, and worked with. 231 - > When someone says, I'm worried about this. We do not need to 232 - > jump straight to reassurance when someone says this does not 233 - > make sense. We do not need to immediately defend the strategy 234 - > when someone is frustrated, quiet, resistant or disengaged.
235 - > We do not need to label them as negative. What we need to do is 236 - > get curious. What are they protecting? What might they be losing?
237 - > What have they not yet been able to make sense of? What 238 - > conversation have we failed to create? This is where the three 239 - > episodes come together. Mike Krupit reminded us to adapt, 240 - > Graeme Cowan reminded us to care, and Huw reminded us to 241 - > connect, adapt, care, connect.
242 - > That is a simple phrase, but it is not simplistic, because each 243 - > word requires discipline and intentionality. To adapt, we 244 - > need humility. We need to accept that our default leadership 245 - > style may not be what this moment requires. Things to care, 246 - > we need presence.
We need to notice the human being behind 247 - > the task, the target, the role, or the behavior. To connect, we 248 - > need courage. We need to move beyond broadcasting and create 249 - > real conversations where people can make sense of what is 250 - > happening, and underneath all three is the deeper theme. 251 - > Leadership is helping people make sense of their world.
When 252 - > an organization grows, people need help making sense of what 253 - > that growth means to them. When a team is under pressure, people 254 - > need help making sense of how to sustain performance without 255 - > sacrificing well-being. When change arrives, people need help 256 - > making sense of what is being lost, what is being gained, and 257 - > how can they find agency in the future that is emerging. This 258 - > also reflects something that is involving in our work on The 259 - > Leadership Project body of work.
260 - > We are not just building a library of leadership tips, we 261 - > are not simply collecting frameworks, we are starting to 262 - > see a leadership operating system emerge, and at the center 263 - > of that system is a very human proposition. Leadership is the 264 - > conscious practice of creating the conditions where people feel 265 - > seen, heard, valued, and capable of doing work that matters. But 266 - > I would now add something to that leadership is also the 267 - > conscious practice of helping people make meaning together, 268 - > because people do not commit deeply to things they cannot 269 - > make sense of.
They do not bring their best selves to 270 - > environments where they feel unseen. They do not take healthy 271 - > risks when they feel unsafe, they do not embrace change when 272 - > they feel powerless, and they do not perform sustainably when 273 - > they are depleted. They do not grow when leaders either rescue 274 - > them from every challenge or abandon them in the name of 275 - > employ empowerment, so what do we do with all this? 276 - > Let me offer three practical calls to action.
First, ask 277 - > yourself, what does this moment require for me, not what is my 278 - > preferred style, not work what worked last time, not what do I 279 - > normally do. Does this moment require? Does it require 280 - > clarity? Does it require patience, challenge, king?
care, 281 - > does it require a difficult conversation? Does it require me 282 - > to step in, or does it require me to step back? That is 283 - > situational and adaptive leadership at the heart, second, 284 - > ask yourself, Who needs me to notice them this week, not who 285 - > needs another task update, not who needs more performance 286 - > pressure, who needs to be noticed, who's gone quiet in 287 - > your team, who seems different, who is carrying more than they 288 - > are saying, who might need a real check in, not just a casual 289 - > how are you as you rush between meetings, that is the caring 290 - > leadership question.
Third, ask yourself, Where have I 291 - > communicated but not yet created conversation. This is the change 292 - > leadership question. Where have people heard the message, but 293 - > not had the chance to make meaning? Where have we assumed 294 - > agreement where there is only silence?
Where have we labeled 295 - > people as resistant when they may simply be uncertain, 296 - > fearful, or protecting something important? And here is the 297 - > practical challenge I would leave with this week. Choose one 298 - > situation in your leadership world where people may be 299 - > struggling to make sense of what is happening might be change, 300 - > new expectation, team tension, a person who is under pressure, 301 - > might even be yourself. Then create one conversation, not a.
302 - > Broadcast, not a lecture, not a slide deck, a conversation. Ask, 303 - > what does this mean for you? 304 - > What feels clear, and what still feels uncertain? What are you 305 - > concerned about losing?
What support would help you move 306 - > forward? What do you need from me right now? And then listen, 307 - > really listen, not to correct, not to defend, not to win, 308 - > listen to understand the meaning they are making, because when 309 - > people feel seen, heard, and valued, they are more likely to engage. 310 - > When people can make sense of what is happening, they are more 311 - > likely to find agency.
And when leaders adapt, care, and 312 - > connect, they create the conditions where people can move 313 - > forward with greater confidence, courage, and trust. That is the 314 - > leadership challenge of our time, not simply to manage 315 - > performance, not simply to implement change, not simply to 316 - > communicate strategy. But to understand the human experience 317 - > of work to understand what people are thinking, feeling, 318 - > protecting, fearing, hoping, and becoming, because leadership is 319 - > not a formula, it's not a title, it's not a mechanical set of 320 - > steps, leadership is a human practice.
And at its best, 321 - > leadership helps people make sense of their world, finding 322 - > their place in it, and contribute to something that matters. 323 - > So, this week, remember, adapt to the moment, care for the 324 - > people, and connect through conversation, keep creating 325 - > those environments where people feel seen, heard, valued, and 326 - > capable of doing work that matters. Until next time, keep 327 - > leading with purpose, and remember, leadership is not 328 - > about the title you hold, it's about the positive difference 329 - > you make in the lives of others.
330 - > You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today 331 - > sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself, share it with 332 - > one other person who would benefit from listening to the 333 - > show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work 334 - > editing every episode, and to my amazing wife Sei, who does all 335 - > the heavy lifting in the background to make this show 336 - > possible. None of this happens without them.
Around here, we 337 - > believe leadership is a practice, not a position that 338 - > people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter. 339 - > That the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for 340 - > curiosity, and control for trust. If that resonates with 341 - > you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast 342 - > app. And if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and 343 - > explore our archives for conversations that move you from 344 - > knowing to doing.
Until next time, lead with curiosity, 345 - > courage, and care.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
Managing Your WORK IDENTITY: Authenticity, Bias, & Resume Whitening with Professor Sonia Kang (ep. 216)Talk About Talk · on Psychological safety86 / 100
Culture Drives Performance. Here's the Framework.High Octane Leadership · on Psychological safety84 / 100
Your AI Strategy Isn’t the Problem - Your Readiness Is ft. Elaine BarsoomBetween the Briefs · on Organizational change management83 / 100
Why AI Is Changing Jobs Before It Changes Employment with Sebastian FixsonFuture Of Work Podcast · on Organizational change management82 / 100
The Best Boss You Never HadThe Secret Life of Great Leaders · on Psychological safety82 / 100
The HR Leader That Brings Therapy to Work with Isidora Torres, VP of People at BeehiivFNDN Series · on Psychological safety80 / 100328. Leading Through Change with Huw Thomas327. Great Leaders Care: Developing Safe, Resilient and Successful Teams with Graeme Cowan326: Leadership Shifts: Embracing Change in Business with Mike Krupit325. Leadership Is Cultivation: Creating the Conditions for Greatness with Mick Spiers324. Brave Together: Leading Through Curiosity and Co-Creation with Chris Deaver