Responsible Leaders - Healthy Cultures

What constitutes a remarkably healthy culture and a workplace people love being a part of? What about your culture might instead make people frustrated and leave your organization? 

Two critical questions that every leader needs to ask. 

While we face an economic downturn, the job market is still competitive, especially for highly skilled talent. And we all want to be known for building great organizational cultures. 

So what can leaders do? 

Charlie and Don Sull, researchers at MIT and co-founders of Culture X, have conducted the largest systematic study of corporate culture ever, analyzing 1.4 million Glassdoor reviews from more than 500 of the largest employers in the United States. 

They found that toxic culture is the primary driver of resignations. And that even relatively healthy cultures can have toxic elements that must be addressed. They learned that culture can't be adequately measured using only quantitative measures - like employee engagement surveys. And that the most important elements of stand-out cultures are listening to employees and building psychological safety. 

On the first episode of Season 8 of the Leading Transformational Change Podcast, we bring you a conversation with Charlie Sull. 

Charlie's thought leadership has been featured in the Economist, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and more.

I hope you will find our conversation as insightful, inspiring, and thought-provoking as I did!

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Aga Bajer, on this practical and helpful episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Aga discusses culture myths, how to deal with cultural challenges as your organization grows, how to analyze the health of your culture, and why she believes fun, meaning and belonging are at the heart of a healthy culture.
Agnieszka (Aga) Bajer works with leaders and teams around the globe to help them bring their vision to life. She is the host of the CultureLab podcast and the co-author of “Building and Sustaining a Coaching Culture" - a complete guide on how to embed coaching in an organisation’s DNA.
Duration: 58:55

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Stephen Shedletzky, on this honest and empowering episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this episode, your host Tobias Sturesson discusses the topic of speak-up culture with Stephen Shedletzky who has helped numerous organizations think better about their leadership, purpose, and culture. Stephen Shedletzky worked with Simon Sinek as the Head of Training & Development, inspired by the vision to improve people's work experience worldwide. He is the author of a forthcoming book: Speak-Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up, launching in October. His personal story of overcoming a stutter gives a unique perspective on finding our voice in our organizations.

Duration: 50:25

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Dr. Margaret Heffernen, on this profound and empowering episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Margaret discusses how to reimagine the future and not fall into the trap of wilful blindness.
Dr. Margaret Heffernen is an entrepreneur, CEO, writer, and keynote speaker. The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. Her TED talks have been seen by over twelve million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. Her most recent book, Uncharted: How to map the future was published in 2020.
She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and continues to write for the Financial Times and the Huffington Post.
Duration: 54:47

Welcome to episode 71 of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. Your usual host, Tobias Sturesson, switches into the role of guest and is interviewed by his colleague, Andreas Almlöf. They discuss organizational cultures in crisis, different types of unhealthy cultures, and how to rebuild trust within organizations going through challenging times.
Duration: 35:10

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Dr. Deb Mashek, on this timely and informative episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Deb discusses why collaboration should matter, in what cases it becomes critical, and what it takes to foster a culture of collaboration.

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Uri Gneezy, on this insightful episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Uri discusses his work on when and why incentives in an organization can backfire and when traditional economic theories fail to explain real human behavior.   Uri Gneezy is professor of economics and strategic management at the Rady School of Management, UC San Diego. As a researcher, Gneezy's focus is on putting behavioral economics to work in the real world, where theory can meet application. Topics include incentives-based interventions to increase good habits and decrease bad ones, Pay-What-You-Want pricing, and the detrimental effects of small and large incentives. In addition to the traditional laboratory and field studies, he is working with several firms, conducting experiments in which they are using basic findings from behavioral economics to help companies achieve their traditional goals in non-traditional ways. He is the co-author of the bestseller, The Why Axis. His forthcoming book, Mixed Signals releases on March 31 2023.  Duration: 52:51

Join your host Tobias Sturesson and his guest, Frank Blake, on this exciting and motivating episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. In this conversation, Frank discusses how incentives matter and why senior leaders need to absorb complexity and deal with values dilemmas and conflicting goals. He also explains what it means to lead from an inverted triangle and how to put concepts like servant/humble leadership into practice.

Happy New Year! Welcome to Season 7 of the Leading Transformational Change podcast. Your usual host, Tobias Sturesson, switches into the role of guest and is interviewed by his colleague, Andreas Almlöf. They discuss what stood out the most throughout the podcast episodes of 2022 and reflect on how to think about culture and values in a time of change and crisis. In addition, Tobias shares about his forthcoming book and why he decided to write it in the first place.

In this episode of the Leading Transformational Change podcast, your host Tobias Sturesson brings back a conversation with Jennifer Chatman from December 2020. In this perceptive and relevant interview with this world-renowned researcher, teacher and consultant on leveraging organizational culture, they discuss what it takes to change and leverage culture, and her research on how narcissistic leadership impacts culture.