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- Christian Nationalism and the 2026 Midterms: Why Leaders Must Reject Dominionism with Dr. Keri Ladner
Abuse of power rarely announces itself. Sometimes it hides behind sacred language, promises of miracles, and a mandate to take dominion over every part of society.
Lori Adams-Brown sits down with Dr. Keri Ladner, author of American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom, to trace how a radical strand of American evangelicalism moved from the margins into the centers of political power, and why its patterns of coercion matter for leaders in business, government, academia, and faith communities around the world. Airing days before the US elections, this is a conversation about power, belief, and the courage to name harm, wherever you lead and wherever you vote.
In this episode:
How living in Amman, Jordan, and earning her PhD in Edinburgh reshaped Keri's understanding of faith, Christian Zionism, and humanitarian need
Why a book that began as research into evangelical gun culture after the Columbine shooting became a history of Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation
Keri's argument that Dominion theology has long served as a cover for abuse, and why she calls faith healing the "jet fuel" of these movements
The Seven Mountain Mandate: why Keri sees the push for dominion over government, business, education, and media as deliberate, not accidental
What an exit path looks like for people leaving coercive systems, and why Keri calls for "radical holy empathy"
About the guest: Dr. Keri Ladner earned her PhD at the University of Edinburgh and studies the intersection of fundamentalist religion and American politics. She is the author of American Dominion (Bloomsbury) and End Time Politics: From Moral Majority to QAnon, and her writing has appeared in The Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, and Good Faith Media.
Resources mentioned: American Dominion by Keri Ladner; the Heaven Bent podcast; Jesus and John Wayne and Live Laugh Love by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.
Timestamps:
00:00 Cold open
00:45 Why this conversation matters for leaders
03:15 Jordan, Edinburgh, and breaking with conservative evangelicalism
07:00 From gun culture to Dominionism: Columbine and the New Apostolic Reformation
13:10 Doug Wilson, Pete Hegseth, and the neo-Confederate thread
17:10 When Dominion theology becomes a cover for abuse
21:25 Faith healing as the movement's "jet fuel"
27:15 Dominionism and misogyny
30:45 "Shame must change sides"
35:20 The Seven Mountain Mandate beyond the church walls
38:00 The exit ramp: radical holy empathy
41:35 Where to find Keri
- 42:25 Closing reflections from Lori
- 45:15 Passport Stamp: the Philippines
Find Dr. Keri Ladner at: Substack, https://keriladner.substack.com. American Dominion is available from Bloomsbury, Amazon, and your local library (ask your library to hold a copy so everyone can read it).
Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for your team or your own leadership? Head to https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com to see how we work together and where to start.
Leading through power dynamics that feel unsafe at work? Lori's SAFE Ground Framework™ helps leaders spot and respond to bullying and coercive patterns: https://loriadamsbrown.com/safe
Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move: https://www.expatsi.com/?ref=2kJ926HZ. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode.
Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources.
Connect with Lori: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/loriadamsbrown | Substack https://loriadamsbrown.substack.com
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51 min - How to Vote for Character, Not Charisma: Courage and Integrity in a Narcissistic Age with Dr. Chuck DeGroat
Have you ever followed a leader who shared their struggles on stage, said all the right things about brokenness, and still left everyone around them feeling smaller? Therapist and professor Dr. Chuck DeGroat has a name for that: fauxnerability.
Chuck returns to A World of Difference the day after launching his new book, Who You're Becoming, for an honest conversation about narcissism in leadership across tech, politics, faith communities and nonprofits, and the slow work of building real character.
Content note: this episode discusses narcissistic and spiritual abuse. Please listen with care.
In this episode:
- Fauxnerability: how performed vulnerability draws people in, and why real vulnerability connects us instead of shrinking us
- Why Chuck sees narcissism as a defensive structure built over decades, and why he holds empathy and accountability together
- Return to office and narcissistic supply: why some leaders need people back in the room, and the "mirror-hungry leader" who needs an audience
- Virtue signaling, performative allyship, and the difference between groupthink and a wholehearted yes
- Disintegration at work: when mission statements say one thing and the patterns beneath the waterline say another
About Dr. Chuck DeGroat: Chuck is a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary, where he is founding executive director of the clinical mental health counseling program, and a licensed therapist and spiritual director who specializes in abuse, trauma and leadership health. He is the author of When Narcissism Comes to Church, Healing What's Within, and Who You're Becoming: The Slow and Courageous Work of Cultivating Character in a Narcissistic Age (Tyndale), which earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
Timestamps:
00:00 Hook: why people plug into narcissistic leaders
00:33 Introduction: welcome back, Chuck
04:58 San Francisco, loneliness, and why connection fuels leaders
07:51 Fauxnerability: when vulnerability becomes a performance
10:14 A crisis of leadership and the doubling down on power
14:54 Empathy and accountability with leaders who have caused harm
19:14 Return to office and narcissistic supply
22:33 Mirror-hungry leaders and ideal-hungry followers
23:56 Lori's story: when you are someone's narcissistic supply
24:58 Virtue signaling and performative allyship
28:07 Disintegration, and what a reintegrated culture looks like
32:08 Reckonings across institutions, and reasons for hope
33:25 The vision of Who You're Becoming: growing in integrity
36:06 Where to find Chuck and his new book
37:03 Closing reflections
40:03 Passport Stamp: Canada
A note on the research mentioned: Adam Grant, Marissa Shandell and Courtney Elliott found that leader narcissism was associated with greater resistance to remote work. The title of this research article says it all: Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work https://fortune.com/2026/06/25/return-to-office-ceos-ego-research/
Find Dr. Chuck DeGroat at: https://chuckdegroat.net | Substack, Sit with Chuck | Instagram | Facebook
Get his new book, Who You're Becoming
Join us on Patreon for an exclusive bonus with Chuck: the story from his book that shows how "performative authenticity" can hide narcissism, even among wellness voices and self-help lovers: https://www.patreon.com/aworldofdifference
Has a leader's "vulnerability" ever left you feeling smaller? Explore my SAFE Ground Framework™, a tool for leaders and targets to spot workplace bullying before it spreads.
Want to see how your leadership shows up under pressure? Explore the VOICE diagnostic from Brava Global Advisory.
Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
Connect with Lori: https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/loriadamsbrown | https://loriadamsbrown.substack.com
If this episode gave you something, you can give a little back with a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/loriadamsbr
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43 min - Lead with Courage: Why Workplace Culture Is a Design Choice with Dr. Lauran Star
Workplace culture isn't broken. According to Dr. Lauran Star, it's working exactly as it was designed, and that should make every leader stop and look closely.
Organizational psychologist and forensic cultural behaviorist Dr. Lauran Star joins Lori for a candid, funny, and unflinching conversation about the high-stakes environments most consultants won't touch: where leadership is misaligned, accountability is blurred, and everyone can feel something is wrong, but no one will say it out loud.
In this episode:
- Why courageous leadership starts with the mirror, and the one question every leader should ask themselves
- The culture infinity loop: how what happens in society shows up at work, and how work shapes society in return
- What engagement scores miss, and the real signals of a struggling culture: sick time, early turnover, and the comments nobody reads
- Leading across national cultures without forcing everyone to assimilate, plus Lauran's "cafeteria test" for inclusion
- Why leadership, not technology, decides how AI shows up in your organization
About Dr. Lauran Star: Dr. Lauran Star is an organizational psychologist, forensic cultural behaviorist, author, and executive advisor who helps leaders see what their organizations have learned to accept. A military veteran and former trauma medic, she is the creator of The Normalization Effect™ and The Rethink Project™ and the author of See Dick Throw a Hissy Fit: The Rise and Predictable Fall of U.S. Culture.
Timestamps:
00:00 Hook
00:22 Introduction
02:17 How the world's cultures shaped Lauran's leadership
04:36 Why real leaders question everything
07:25 A million followers is not a credential
09:34 Dysfunction at the top, and the fear of challenging it
13:02 The culture infinity loop: society and the workplace mirror each other
15:58 Where leaders should look first: the mirror and courageous leadership
25:26 "I asked for it": a salary negotiation lesson
32:04 Leading across national cultures
35:56 Assimilation and the beauty we are losing
38:57 The cafeteria test
41:27 Leadership drives AI, not the other way around
44:15 The first honest question: is your culture real?
46:52 Why new CHROs get sidelined, and what it costs
48:26 Values need behaviors: dysfunction lasts three to five years
52:17 Where to find Lauran and her new book
53:15 Closing reflections and Passport Stamp: India
A note on the research mentioned in the opening: for context, Spencer Stuart's 2025 S&P 1500 CEO Transitions report found that 84% of newly appointed S&P 1500 CEOs in 2025 were in their first CEO role: https://www.spencerstuart.com/research-and-insight/2025-sp-1500-ceo-transitions-behind-the-ceo-moment
Find Dr. Lauran Star at: https://www.lauranstar.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauranstar | https://substack.com/@drlauranstar
Get her book, See Dick Throw a Hissy Fit
Is your workplace safe? Explore my SAFE Ground Framework™, a tool for leaders and targets to spot workplace bullying before it spreads.
Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for you? Take the VOICE assessment
Leading or working across borders, or thinking about building a life in another country? Expatsi helps you compare countries and plan the move. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
Connect with Lori: https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/loriadamsbrown | https://loriadamsbrown.substack.com
If this episode gave you something, you can give a little back with a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/loriadamsbr
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55 min - Stop Doing Change to People: Human-Centered Leadership in the AI Era with CEO Karen Zeigler
What if people do not resist change at all, and what they resist is change that is done to them? Karen Zeigler, CEO of Human Score, joins Lori to explain why so many change and AI efforts stall, and what leaders can do differently this week.
This conversation was recorded live on LinkedIn, with comments and questions from the community along the way.
In this conversation, Lori and Karen explore:
- Why leaders misread their own workforce, and how fear shows up as projection
- What Karen means by "AI is us," and why using AI in a human-centered way takes conscious intent
- The business case for designing work so that people and AI each contribute what they do best
- Why people resist change that is thrust upon them, and how transparency, agency, and removing even one obstacle build trust
- How a Nutri-Score label on a frozen pizza in the Netherlands inspired a score for how healthy an organization is for its people
About Karen: Karen Zeigler is the CEO of Human Score, a diagnostic that shows leaders the conditions inside their organization across work design, organizational structure, culture, decision making, and fairness. She spent more than a decade in financial services leading teams through mergers, and she brings a human-centered design lens to change and AI adoption.
Disclosure: Lori is a consultant with Human Score and the Human Score Collective.
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome and introduction
02:34 Where leaders misread their own workforce
05:30 Fear, ego, and "us versus them"
08:04 What Human Score measures
12:04 "AI is us": using AI in a human-centered way
14:04 The business case for investing in people
19:48 A lesson from the 2008 financial crisis
22:08 Do people really resist change?
27:04 Why listening tours erode trust
28:30 Constant change and human limits
32:48 Comments from the live audience
35:39 Risk reduction and value creation
37:22 What Karen unlearned about leading high performers
42:24 Empathy, and why the obstacle is the way
45:02 How the Human Score works
51:13 Using AI to free people's gifts and talents
54:24 The frozen pizza behind the name
56:52 Lori's three takeaways and Passport Stamp: the Netherlands
Find Karen Zeigler at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-zeigler/
Human Score: https://humanscore.info
Human Score on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-human-score
Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for your team or your own leadership? Head to https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com to see how we work together and where to start.
Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode.
Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources.
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1 hr 5 min - Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work: Understanding Work Intensification with Melissa Swift
Have you ever felt that the moment you catch your breath, three new demands are already waiting? Organizational consultant Melissa Swift gives that feeling a name, work intensification, and explains what helps.
In this conversation, Lori and Melissa explore:
- How three years working in London showed Melissa that a shared language does not mean a shared cu
lture- What work intensification is: too many tasks in too little time, too many people involved in every decision, and too much emotion at work
- How AI can quietly erode trust at work, and why peer learning and thoughtful change management matter
- How to stand out in an AI-saturated job market by naming what you are genuinely good at in simple terms
- What high-stakes professions teach us about clear communication, and why the people who care most are often the ones who burn out
About Melissa: Melissa Swift is the founder and CEO of Anthrome Insight, an advisory firm helping organizations and individuals work more effectively in a fast-changing, technology-driven world. She has held consulting leadership roles at Capgemini, Mercer, Korn Ferry, and Deloitte, and is the author of Effective: How to Do Great Work in a Fast-Changing World (Wiley, 2026).
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome and introduction
01:27 What living in London taught Melissa about culture
03:50 Direct and indirect communication across cultures
06:42 More communication, less clarity
10:02 What work intensification is
12:49 Emotional regulation and leadership
17:45 AI and the erosion of trust
21:49 Learning AI with your peers
27:43 Change agility and staying power
32:09 Standing out in an AI resume era
38:17 Lessons from high-stakes work
43:37 Younger workers and the "unboiled frogs"
46:14 Burnout, boundaries, and agency
49:06 Where to find Melissa
Find Melissa Swift at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swiftmelissa
Website: https://www.anthromeinsight.com
Book: https://www.anthromeinsight.com/books
Join us for an exclusive bonus with Melissa on Patreon.
Want to see how your leadership shows up under pressure? Explore the VOICE diagnostic from Brava Global Advisory: https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com/voice
Considering a move abroad for work like Melissa's years in London? Expatsi can help you plan the practical side. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode.
Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources.
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57 min - How three years working in London showed Melissa that a shared language does not mean a shared cu
- What Actually Motivates People at Work: The Enneagram Guide to Understanding Your Team with Joey Schewee
Have you ever worked with someone who just didn't get you, not because they were difficult, but because you were wired completely differently? In this episode, Lori sits down with Enneagram expert Joey Schewee to unpack why understanding motivation, not just behavior, is what actually transforms how teams work together.
Joey has spent decades helping thousands of employees and hundreds of teams understand each other through the Enneagram, and her new book, When Working Together Doesn't Work, distills that experience into a practical workplace guide. She and Lori dig into why so many people mistype themselves at work, why "culture fit" hiring can quietly push out your most brilliant thinkers, and how managers can stop putting people in boxes and start understanding what actually drives them.
In this episode:
- Why the Enneagram explains the why behind behavior, not just the what, and why that matters more in stress and change
- The three "stances" at work (independent, dependent, withdrawing) and what each one needs to perform at its best: consistency, affirmation, or latitude
- Why fives and eights often get labeled "not a culture fit," and what that costs organizations
- How mistyping happens at work, and why so many people test as eights, ones, or threes simply because they're "doing" at the time
- Practical language for managers to use type-awareness without putting anyone in a box
About Joey Schewee: Joey Stabile Schewee is a management consultant, executive coach, and author of When Working Together Doesn't Work: An Enneagram Guide to Productive Relationships with Coworkers. She's spent 17+ years consulting with corporate teams, drawing on a lifetime immersed in Enneagram wisdom.
Timestamps:
- 00:00 – Introduction and why motivation matters more than behavior
- 04:00 – How the Enneagram functions in teams and organizations
- 09:00 – Mistyping at work and the "boxes" myth
- 17:00 – A real-world example: culture in family-owned companies
- 25:00 – Where leaders get alignment wrong
- 31:00 – Coaching managers to engage direct reports by type
- 37:00 – New concepts: stances, reference points, and what each needs to thrive
- 46:00 – Where to find Joey and her book
Find Joey Schewee at: wesolutions.life | linkedin.com/in/joeyschewee | Instagram: @enneagramparents | Book: When Working Together Doesn't Work
Join us for an exclusive where Joey gets personal about her own career journey and Enneagram discovery on Patreon.
Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for you? Take the VOICE assessment: https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com/voice
Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode.
Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
58 min - Escape the Access Tax: How Lolita Taub Built a Career From Scratch as a Latina Venture Capitalist
Most people enter venture capital as a founder, an angel, an LP, a GP, or an ecosystem builder, usually without a roadmap. Lolita Taub has been all five. She calls the hidden cost of building without inherited networks the "access tax," and she says it shows up everywhere: in every country, for founders and investors and leaders alike, and most people never even name it.
In this conversation, Lolita and Lori dig into:
- The three elements of the access tax: time, equity, and the emotional cost of learning unwritten rules nobody wrote down
- Why code-switching becomes dangerous the moment you start believing it is you, and how to honor a culture without losing your identity
- What "community as capital" really means, and why every leadership role is an ecosystem-building role whether or not it says so on the org chart
- How to answer biased pitch and interview questions ("how will you avoid failing?") by redirecting to the numbers and the value you bring
- The case for investing in Latin America and Latino-founded companies, including the economic scale most investors overlook
- What growing up in South Central LA and building a venture fund taught her about resilience, and why she wrote the book she wished she'd had
Lolita Taub is General Partner and Founder of Ganas Ventures, a pre-seed and seed fund backing community-driven startups across the US and Latin America. In nearly 20 years across tech and venture capital she has made more than 100 investments and built a community of over 100,000 underestimated founders, funders, and friends.
Timestamps (placeholder — pending final edit)
00:00 – Cold open01:00 – Welcome and introduction02:00 – A non-linear career: from big tech to startups to venture04:00 – What is the "access tax"?08:00 – Code-switching and corporate America13:00 – Community as capital, ecosystem building as leadership21:00 – Data centers, AI, and the people behind the numbers22:30 – The five seats of venture: founder, angel, LP, GP, ecosystem builder27:00 – Answering biased pitch and interview questions33:00 – The case for investing in Latin America38:00 – What Venezuela and resilience taught Lori40:00 – Where to find Lolita and her bookFind Lolita Taub at: LinkedIn | X/Twitter | Instagram | Ganas Ventures | Book: lolitataub.co/book
Join us on Patreon for the bonus, exclusive episode with Lolita, just for patrons. (You can start off with a free trial.)
Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode.
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Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for your distributed team or your own leadership globally? Head to https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com to see how we work together and where to start.
Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move https://www.expatsi.com/?ref=2kJ926HZ. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
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51 min - Stop Managing Performance, Start Enabling It: Dr. Edie Goldberg on the New Talent Management Paradigm
What if everything you've been taught about managing performance was built for a workplace that no longer exists? Dr. Edie Goldberg returns to A World of Difference to unpack the research behind her new book, revealing why the system most companies use to drive performance is quietly working against them.
Topics Covered
Why “coercive control” — carrots, sticks, and fear-based motivation — is the hidden operating system behind most performance management, and why the research says it doesn't work
The shift from measuring performance to enabling it: transparency, trust, autonomy, and connecting work to purpose
Why only 4% of employees revisit their goals mid-year, and how to make goal-setting actually motivating
What a real “performance feedback culture” looks like, and the four conditions that predict it
How AI can genuinely support performance enablement (goal clarity, personalized development, reduced bias) — and where it can quietly go wrong
The bias built into hiring and performance systems, and what a well-designed AI process can do differently
Guest Bio
Dr. Edie Goldberg is founder and president of E. L. Goldberg and Associates, a globally recognized expert in talent management and the future of work, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She is co-author of Performance Enablement: A Model for Driving Organizational Performance and The Inside Gig: How Sharing Talent Across Boundaries Unleashes Organizational Capacity.
Timestamps
00:00 – Cold open
01:13 – Why Edie wrote this book now
05:34 – Coercive control as a management strategy
09:13 – The new paradigm: enabling control
14:27 – The elephant in the room: managers spend 90% of their time doing the work
21:44 – Why goal-setting fails (the 4% problem)
28:11 – AI's real impact on performance management
37:14 – Bias in AI hiring and performance systems
44:11 – Where to find Edie and her book
48:00 – Passport Stamp: New Zealand (a shout out to the Kiwis who listen from Aotearoa, the Maori word for New Zealand)
Watch the exclusive, bonus episode on Patreon here.
Find Dr. Edie Goldberg At
elgoldberg.com | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/edie-goldberg-phd | Book: Performance Enablement
Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode.
Watch this episode on Youtube.
Visit aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources.
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Brava
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52 min - Change Makers EPS 61: Allan Wind on the Andes, USAID and Peace Corps
Allan J. "Alonzo" Wind is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), having worked off and on with the Agency primarily overseas on diplomatic assignments from 1990 to 2019 in the Peru, Nicaragua, Angola, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and South Africa and the Southern Africa Regional Missions. In these roles he provided oversight to U.S. government foreign aid development and humanitarian assistance and supported U.S. Ambassadors as their senior development officer on multiple U.S. Embassy Country Teams. In South Africa he helped establish the Southern Africa Regional Leadership Center as part of President Obama’s Young African Leadership Initiative, and contributed to other youth development efforts and business incubators.
He previously worked as the Global Programme Coordinator for the International Save the Children Alliance Secretariat and as a Country Director and Health Sector Coordinator for different nonprofit private voluntary organizations including CARE and PLAN International in a range of countries including Ecuador, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom.
Mr. Wind began his career as a Rural Public Health U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1980-1982, where he was widely known as “Doctor Alonzo.” The Alonzo nickname stuck throughout life in many countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
He graduated from the University of Chicago. He is originally a New Yorker, and as a high schooler he was a “subway rat” attending the famous Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. There he studied creative writing for two years with his teacher, the famous Irish American writer Frank McCourt. He has always been an avid science fiction fan and sometime writer, and notes that writing science fiction and creative writing under Frank was invaluable for future U.S. government work.
He and his wife currently reside in Fairfax County Virginia, while their adult daughter is in Africa on her own adventures. Mr. Wind serves on the Boards of Directors of different non-governmental organizations, including Hunger Relief International, supporting the efforts to help the neediest in Guatemala and Haiti, any way he can.
His memoir is Andean Adventures
Website: https://enableennoble.net
ANDEAN ADVENTURES: https://tinyurl.com/AndeanAdv
AVENTURAS ANDINAS: https://tinyurl.com/AventurasAndinas
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53 min - Why Your AI Transformation Is Failing (Hint: It's Not the Technology) with Shaara Roman
What if your AI transformation isn't stalling because of the technology, but because of the culture, trust, and leadership behaviors you've built (or failed to build) around it? Shaara Roman has spent years inside global enterprises watching AI initiatives launch with fanfare and quietly fall apart, not because the software failed, but because the people strategy was missing.
In this episode:
- Why AI should be treated as a team member, not just a tool
- The six pillars of AI change management: strategy, org design, culture, workforce capability, motivation/metrics, and ethical guardrails
- Why most AI adoptions fail — and why the human side, not the tech, is the real bottleneck
- Surprising diagnostic findings: middle managers are consistently the least ready for AI adoption
- Three telltale signs an organization isn't ready for AI
- How Shaara's third culture kid upbringing across India, Nigeria, and England shaped her adaptive leadership approach
Guest bio: Shaara Roman is the founder and CEO of the Silvering Group, where she advises CEOs and executive teams on leading through AI transformation. A former senior HR executive at Visa, Fannie Mae, and CGI, she is the author of The Conscious Workplace and creator of the SPARC AIQ Diagnostic.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction02:00 Shaara's TCK journey across India, Nigeria, England04:30 AI as a team member, not just a tool08:00 Where leaders get AI adoption wrong12:00 Why hiring systems aren't built for adaptive leadership18:40 The six pillars of AI change management26:40 Three signs an organization isn't ready for AI32:50 Inside the SPARC AIQ Diagnostic38:30 Where to find Shaara and her workFind Shaara Roman at: LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/shaara) | Website (silveringroup.com)
Join us for an exclusive bonus episode with Shaara on Patreon.
Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode.
Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources.Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move — https://www.expatsi.com/?ref=2kJ926HZ. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission.
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47 min
About A World of Difference
From the publisher's feed
A World of Difference is a leadership podcast for executives and organizational leaders navigating change across cultures, industries, and continents. Hosted by Lori Adams-Brown, a strategic transformation executive with over 20 years of C-suite advisory experience, the show explores organizational effectiveness, executive development, and leadership development through real conversations with leaders who have built and led across borders.
Each episode features leadership stories from places and travel destinations spanning six continents, bringing listeners cross-cultural communication insights drawn from lived experience, not theory. Lori's own background, including over 15 years as an expat in Indonesia and Singapore, shapes every conversation with a global mindset rarely found in mainstream leadership media.
Topics covered include human intelligence in AI transformation and change management, global leadership and cultural intelligence, executive coaching and talent development, organizational behavior and behavioral science, C-suite advisory and board governance, workplace culture and employee engagement, human capital strategy, and international business leadership. Through leadership interviews across the world, listeners gain practical frameworks for leading through disruption, building trust across cultures, and aligning fast-moving technology adoption with the human systems that make it stick.
With more than 300 episodes, 153,000+ downloads, and listeners in 100+ countries, A World of Difference ranks in the top 3% of podcasts globally. It is essential listening for world leaders, HR executives, CHROs, CPOs, organizational development leaders, management consultants, and anyone building or leading global teams across industries and across the globe.