Leadership Biz Cafe With Tanveer Naseer

If you’re a leader who leads from the so-called messy middle, I'm sure there are times where you feel how the challenges you face are uniquely different from those other leaders have to face. As it turns out, those leading from the middle do face both unique challenges - as well as opportunities other leaders don’t have access to - as a result of their having to lead down, up and at times, across the organization.Thankfully, in this episode of my podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”, I’ll be speaking with a seasoned executive who’s first hand experience and research has lead to a powerful and insightful playbook to help those who lead from the middle.Scott Mautz is not only a former Procter & Gamble senior executive, but he wrote a popular leadership column on Inc.com, serves as faculty at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business for Executive Education, and the CEO/founder of Profound Performance, a keynote, leadership training, and coaching company.Scott is also a good friend of mine who’s written three

If you’re in the leadership space, it’s hard not to notice the ongoing debate over remote working versus getting everyone to return to the office. While every industry and organization has to decide for themselves what’s the best approach to take for everyone involved, there’s been a number of key points that are glaringly missing from these discussions.In this latest edition of my Leadership Espresso Shot series, I wanted to address one of these, namely what kind of workplace environment are you nurturing through your leadership? Is it one that’s driving future success or is it one moored in pushing mediocrity?In a recent interview on CNBC, Dell Technologies Chairman & CEO Michael Dell made the following statement:“Through this last 18 months, we all sort of learned work is something we do, it’s not a place.”Right now, unfortunately, a lot of the discussion around remote work is focusing on work being about where and when, instead of what and why. I hope you’ll check out this episode to discover why this

If you enjoy reading interviews of CEOs sharing what shapes their understanding and approach to leadership, chances are you’ve probably read one of the over 500 interviews Adam Bryant wrote for his popular New York Times column, “Corner Office”.I’ve been an avid reader of Adam’s column for many, many years so I was delighted when his publicist reached out to me to say Adam was interested in appearing on my podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”.For those who might not be familiar with Adam’s work, in addition to writing the “Corner Office” column, Adam wrote the New York Times bestseller “The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How To Lead and Succeed” as well as “Quick and Nimble - Lessons From Leading CEOs on How To Create a Culture of Innovation”. On this episode of my leadership podcast, Adam and I sit down to talk about his latest book, “The CEO Test - Master The Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders”*, which he he co-wrote with former Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer.Over the course of my

It seems like every day there’s a new article tackling the issue of work from home (WFH), either focusing on leaders and their organizations who are embracing this new approach to work, or those who insist the only way forward is for all employees to return back to the office. But as these debates continue over WFH, it seems like many have forgotten the real purpose of leadership, which is why I decided to address it in this edition of my Leadership Espresso Shot series on my “Leadership Biz Cafe” podcast.Part of what served as inspiration for this episode has been numerous conversations I’ve had over the past several months with VPs and other senior leaders in various industries as part of a series of leadership roundtable discussions I moderated. Over the course of these discussions, we examined a wide range of issues – from the impact of AI and other emergent technologies on how employees will work and collaborate, to the issue of hybrid work environments.I won’t give away what I share in this episode, but

When it comes to conversations around curiosity in today’s workplace, the focus tends to be on how it helps to drive innovation. But as my guest Dr. Shannon Minifie points out in this episode of my leadership podcast, when leaders unleash the full power of curiosity in their organization, they can also empower learning and development, as well as strengthening organizational resilience.Shannon is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a Canadian consultancy firm that works with organizations to help them create a curiosity-led organizational culture. Recently, she published the white paper “From Trouble Maker to Change Maker - How To Harness Curiosity To Build Resilience and Innovation”, which provides a framework for how leaders can unleash curiosity in their organization.Over the course of this episode, Shannon and I discuss:Why we need to rethink our understanding of curiosity if we are to successfully tap into it to drive innovation and growth.How embracing a curious mindset can encourage a sustainable learning envir

One of the interesting, but not surprising findings to come out of this current global pandemic is how much people have appreciated being able to have breaks in their work day to just take a break, unwind, and maybe spend some time with their family. In fact, a big reason why we’re seeing an unrelenting demand from employees everywhere to have a hybrid work environment is because we’ve all seen how creating flexibility in the way we work benefits us - both professionally and personally.In this episode of my Leadership Espresso Shot series, I share 4 key benefits leaders gain by creating space in their workday not just for their mental well-being, but also to help improve the way they lead.Now it’s understandable that so many organizations are struggling with how to create a hybrid work environment in their workplace, in large part because it reflects that internal struggle we’ve all been dealing with for years. Where on the one hand, we feel this need to keep pushing forward, to just get things done, and on t

If there’s one thing we’ve all learned over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic it’s the importance of being adaptive to unexpected and disruptive change. Of course, COVID-19 is not the only external force driving systems-wide change. AI and other emergent technologies are poised to be as if not more disruptive to not only the way we work, but even what kind of work we’ll do going forward.So how can we become more adaptive - and resilient - to whatever change we’ll be required to make in the months and years ahead? To examine this question, I’ll be speaking with innovation, learning, and mindset expert Professor Edward Hess in this episode of my podcast, "Leadership Biz Cafe".Ed is the professor emeritus of Business Administration and Batten Executive-in-Residence at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Ed has authored over 100 articles and over 60 cases looking at growth, innovation, and learning cultures. His work has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Fast Company, Fo

When it comes to leadership, there are certain topics that inevitably come up regardless of what industry you operate in. Over the past month, one of the topics I’ve been addressing with leaders is the importance of empathy in leadership, which is why it’s the focus of this edition of my Leadership Espresso Shot series. Specifically, something emotionally intelligent leaders recognize as being critical to building relationships with their employees in order to drive success and growth in their organization.A few weeks ago, I gave a two day workshop on the empathy in leadership and this was followed by several conversations with executives from a wide range of industries where the topic of empathy in leadership arose in conversations around how to effectively create a hybrid work environment in their organization. After conducting this workshop and speaking with these VPs, I realized I hadn’t addressed the greater role empathy needs to play in this evolution to how we’ll work going forward post-pandemic.But ra

Next month marks the 10th year that I’ve been doing my podcast “Leadership Biz Cafe”, something that I started as an excuse to talk with some fascinating people about leadership and which has since become one of the most popular leadership podcasts out there.Although I didn’t make any plans to celebrate this milestone, I’m delighted that I’ve been able to welcome such incredible guests as Tom Peters and now with this episode, another one of my leadership heroes, Jim Kouzes.Jim is the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. But what I’m sure many of you probably know him for is the 30-plus books he’s co-written on leadership, including the international bestseller “The Leadership Challenge”.For this episode, I’ve invited Jim to join me to talk about his latest book, “Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership: How To Make A Difference Regardless of Your Title, Role, or Authority”.Over the course of this episode, some of the topics Jim and I discuss inclu

As a leader, one of the things expected of you is to be able to make that critical decision of whether to continue to pursue an initiative, or whether to cut your losses and move on to something else. While this skill is key to your ability to succeed at leadership, many leaders nonetheless struggle with making this evaluation about themselves in their current role. Of whether they should continue in their current role, or whether it’s time to pursue other opportunities that would allow them to achieve and be that leader they want to be. It’s a challenge that I explore in this latest edition of “Leadership Espresso Shot” on my leadership podcast.More specifically, I share 4 questions that any leader at any stage of their career can use to evaluate whether they’re still able to accomplish what they set out to achieve when taking on this leadership role, what’s holding them back from meeting their goals, and whether these factors are a good indication that it might be best to move on to a new role and allow som

As we move to a hybrid work environment, the organizational culture we foster both internally and remotely becomes critical to what we’re able to achieve. So how can we ensure we’re creating an environment - both virtually and in-person - that inspires employees to share their ideas and insights on how we can improve what we collectively do? That’s what I’ll be discussing with my guests, Karin Hurt and David Dye, on this episode of my podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”.Karin and David are the CEO and President of Let’s Grow Leaders, a leadership training and consulting company. In addition, Karin hosts the popular LinkedIn show, Asking for a Friend, which I’ve actually had the pleasure to be a guest on. As for David, he’s no stranger to the podcast world as he hosts his own podcast, “Leadership Without Losing Your Soul”.On top of that, Karin and David have written two books together, including their latest “Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates”, whic

In the previous edition of my podcast series “Leadership Espresso Shot”, I mentioned how to better appreciate the journey towards achieving success, we must learn to value failure as that necessary teacher that helps us reach our goals. Of course, if we’re going to delve deeper into understanding failure, I thought it would be a good idea in this installment to explore what success really looks like.On the surface, we all have a general idea of what it means to succeed. And yet, if you were to google “what is success”, what you’d end up with is almost 3 billion search results. What this reveals is that while we might all have an idea of what success looks like, that idea can vary greatly from person to person, from team to team, and from one one organization to another.As such, in this edition of my “Leadership Espresso Shot” series, I share 3 questions you should ask yourself and your team to help clarify and articulate what success would look like for your team. And if you’ve attended one of my leadership k

When I started my leadership podcast almost 10 years ago, I had a very simple goal - I wanted to create a platform where I could get the chance to talk with some very smart and really cool people. That’s why the first guest I had on the “Leadership Biz Cafe” podcast was Guy Kawasaki. But I have to admit all these years later, I never thought that the journey I started with this podcast would open the door for me to have a one-on-one conversation with Tom Peters. Without question, Tom is one of the world’s most pre-eminent leadership thinkers, if not also a leadership rebel in his decades-long pursuit to educate and persuade leaders everywhere that at its heart, leadership is all about people under your care and doing right by them. This is a must-listen episode if you want to better understand not only what it takes to lead right now, but in response to the inevitable changes that will completely transform the way we work going forward. And as an extra bonus, you’ll even hear Tom talk about something he hasn’

During a recent conversation with a group of executives about the growing importance of empathy and leadership, a few leaders brought up the issue of addressing failure and the importance of not only “failing fast”, but making sure efforts are made to understand what can be learned from this setback. As we didn’t delve much further into this subject, it got me thinking that this would be a great topic to bring up in my Leadership Espresso Shot series.Many leaders and organizations openly speak of embracing the idea of “failing fast”, of accepting failure as part of the journey and using that understanding to help get past it and keep going.Unfortunately, as many of us know first hand, not all failures are created equal. So while some failures are easy for us to get over, others can have a palpable impact, not just in terms of our organization’s progress and momentum, but also on our emotional state.That’s why in this edition of my Leadership Espresso Shot series, I share a series of three questions that will

Over the many years I’ve been doing this leadership podcast, one of the common themes that comes up in any given episode is the fact that leadership is not about you; it’s about the people you lead. That’s why I’m delighted to speak with my friend (and fellow Canadian) Dan Pontefract about why the most successful leaders are those who care on this episode of "Leadership Biz Cafe".Dan is the founder and CEO of The Pontefract Group, a firm that improves the state of leadership and organizational culture. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria Gustavson School of Business. Prior to this, Dan was the Chief Envisioner and Chief Learning Officer at TELUS—a Canadian telecommunications company. Dan is and the best selling author of four books, including this latest "LEAD. CARE. WIN." which is what Dan and I discuss in this episode.Over the course of our discussion, some of the topics Dan and I talk about include:Why leaders need to be relatable and how the way we view our mistakes is directly c

These days there’s a lot of discussion around what work will look like in a post-pandemic world. Most of that conversation tends to focus on whether employees will return to the office, continue to work remotely, or opt for a hybrid mix of the two. But in this latest installment of my Leadership Espresso Shot series on my leadership podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”, I make the case that what this past year has revealed is not just the necessity of flexibility in how we approach work, but the critical need to connect what we do to what matters to your employees.As I mention in this episode, I was inspired to talk about this topic after serving as the moderator for a virtual roundtable discussion with VPs and senior executives from the FinTech, multimedia, construction, and retail sectors on how they’ve navigated the past year and where their focus will be this year and beyond.Among the many things these senior leaders agreed on was that the days of everyone working in the office during regular office hours are n

Over the past few years, there’s been a growing discussion around artificial intelligence (A.I.) and the potential risks that come with it. Just reading comments from Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates about the potential dangers of AI would certainly seem to be reason to give pause on the continued development of this new technology. And yet, early developments in this realm would seem to demonstrate some genuine game-changers that can actually improve both the way we work and live our lives.So given both the public unease and the positive gains from these early advancements, how should leaders be viewing this technological field and what might its impact be on the way they lead? That’s part of the focus of my conversation with A.I. expert Neil Sahota in this episode of my podcast "Leadership Biz Cafe".Neil serves as the United Nations Artificial Intelligence subject matter expert. He's an IBM Master Inventor, and the Chief Innovation Officer at the Irvine School of Law at the University of Californi

The success in any change initiative is tied to how well employees are able to learn and adapt. But how can leaders encourage a learning mindset out of these pursuits? In this edition of my Leadership Espresso Shot series, I share three simple measures leaders can employ to promote a continuous learning mindset within their workforce.As I mentioned in this episode of my leadership podcast, the idea behind this episode was inspired by conversations I had with attendees after some of the virtual leadership keynotes I’ve given over the past few months to audiences across Europe and North America. Although these leaders had managed to help their employees adapt and pivot to various external challenges of the past 12 months, the concern was how to not only sustain this agile mindset, but build on their hard-won successes.In one of my talks I do share insights on how leaders can promote a continuous learning environment in their organization. And so, I wanted to explore one of the ideas I share in this keynote, spe

There’s no question that our mindset plays a critical role in how we relate to our world and those around us. But how can leaders make sure their mindset is helps bring out the best in others and not impede organizational growth and success? That’s the topic I’ll be exploring with my guest, Dr. Ryan Gottfredson, in this episode of the “Leadership Biz Cafe” podcast.Ryan is a mental success coach, leadership development consultant and researcher. Ryan is also a leadership professor at the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at California State University, Fullerton. He’s also the author of “Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership”*.Over the course of this episode, Ryan and I cover a number of areas around mindset and leadership, including:How a simple shift in our mindset can lead to positive, tangible change.The four specific mindsets you need to develop to improve your ability to lead and succeed.How leaders can develop and strengthen a growth mindset

Have you ever thought about how how you’re communicating progress in your organization? In this latest edition of my Leadership Espresso Shot series for my leadership podcast, I share findings from a fascinating study that show this can have a powerful impact on sustaining motivation over the long term.With the start of a new year, there’s naturally a lot of focus on setting goals, developing plans, and executing strategies that will help your organization to succeed over the next 12 months.Now most of us are familiar with that reality of how when we take on learning something new, or making a change to our lifestyle like eating better or exercising more, at the start we tend to do very well at keeping up with this new effort.Unfortunately, there comes a moment where that early motivation we had to commit to this change or to learning this new skill starts to wane and we find ourselves reverting back to the old and familiar.Of course, this behavioural pendulum is not limited to changes we make in our personal