THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK

By Annett Burger

Most of what we consider to be leadership is about managing resources, not leading humans. AI is about to make that impossible to ignore.

The leadership practices that would actually make work bette... more

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FAQs about THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK:

How many episodes does THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK have?

The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.

THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK episodes:

June 11, 2026Listen to Understand
The Reflection Episode on Deep Listening
In this episode:
A difficult conversation played twice, once with a manager who performs all the right listening moves and misses what matters, and once with a manager who listens to understand.
Why the difference between them comes down to intention, not technique.
Practice one, the intention check: catching the competing goals that quietly run a conversation before it starts.
Practice two, four moves for asking better questions: open instead of leading, what instead of why, the three-second pause, and the follow-up.
How both practices build deeper listening, and stronger connection, at work and beyond it.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
Sources:
Brooks, A. W., and John, L. K. The Surprising Power of Questions. Harvard Business Review, May–June 2018.
Schein, E. H. Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. Berrett-Koehler, 2013.
Eurich, T. What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It). Harvard Business Review, 4 January 2018.
Covey, S. R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press, 1989.
Episodes referenced:
The Talking Reflex
...more
15min
June 09, 2026The Talking Reflex
Listen to Understand, Not to Reply
In this episode:
The gap between how well managers think they listen and how heard their people actually feel.
The three forces behind it: the limits of self-awareness, the lack of honest upward feedback, and a culture that trains leaders to present rather than receive.
Why active listening so often becomes a performance without the intention to understand.
What deep listening actually does, drawing on Itzchakov and Kluger's research on high-quality listening.
The talking reflex and its cost, and why the counter-move is to ask great questions.
How power, organisational culture, and now AI undermine our capacity and willingness to listen.
Why listening to understand is becoming one of the most valuable qualities a leader can bring.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
Sources:
Itzchakov, G., and Kluger, A. N. The Power of Listening in Helping People Change. Harvard Business Review, 17 May 2018.
Eurich, T. What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It). Harvard Business Review, 4 January 2018.
Zenger, J., and Folkman, J. What Great Listeners Actually Do. Harvard Business Review, 14 July 2016.
Covey, S. R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press, 1989.
Zao-Sanders, M. How People Are Really Using AI in 2026. Harvard Business Review, 1 June 2026.
Episodes referenced:
Authenticity Theatre
The Power Paradox
...more
20min
June 04, 2026Would They Tell You?
The Reflection Episode on Psychological Safety
In this episode:
Why your reaction to questions, concerns, mistakes and problems matters.
Recovery moves for when your reaction, or someone else's on the team, lands badly.
How to run sessions that turn AI mistakes into collective learning.
Why rewarding the fastest AI adopters quietly trains people to stop questioning the output.
The one principle underneath it all, and the two questions to ask yourself about your own organisation.
Listen to the main episode first: Psychological Safety - The Cost of Our Silence.
Next episode: The practice we all need to train more - Listening with the intention to really understand.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
...more
15min
June 02, 2026Psychological Safety
The Cost of Our Silence
In this episode:
The Romance of Leadership bias and why coverage of bad bosses misses the responsibility of those who follow them.
Sarah Wynn-Williams' Careless People and Karen Hao's Empire of AI — what they reveal about leadership at the edge of what humans can navigate well.
The Nokia case study from INSEAD: how a culture of fear, driven by the top and kept alive by the people underneath, produced calibrated silence as survival behaviour and destroyed the company.
Google's Project Aristotle and the five dynamics of team effectiveness.
Amy Edmondson's foundational research on psychological safety, and what her recent work on AI adoption surfaces about trust ambiguity and workslop.
The 3M contrast: what learning-mode AI adoption looks like in practice, and why modelling fallibility builds psychological safety.
Why how we handle AI adoption is no longer a management decision but a leadership decision.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
Sources:
Vuori, T. O., and Huy, Q. N. Distributed Attention and Shared Emotions in the Innovation Process: How Nokia Lost the Smartphone Battle. Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 61, Issue 1, 2016.
Edmondson, A. C. Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44, Issue 2, 1999.
Seth, J., and Edmondson, A. C. How to Foster Psychological Safety When AI Erodes Trust on Your Team. Harvard Business Review, 4 February 2026.
Google re:Work. Guide: Understand Team Effectiveness.
Duhigg, C. What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times Magazine, 25 February 2016.
Wynn-Williams, S. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. Flatiron Books, 2025.
Hao, K. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. Penguin Press, 2025.
Farrow, R., and Marantz, A. Sam Altman May Control Our Future — Can He Be Trusted? The New Yorker, April 2026.
ManpowerGroup. 2026 Global Talent Barometer: AI Use Accelerates as Worker Confidence Falls and Job Hugging Takes Hold.
Eatough, E., Ferrazzi, K., and Smith, W. : Why AI Adoption Stalls, According to Industry Data. Harvard Business Review, 17 February 2026.
Writer. 2026 Enterprise AI Survey.
Episodes referenced:
The Confidence Trap
The End of Why
Authenticity Theatre
...more
28min
May 21, 2026 Authenticity Theatre
The Closing Episode to Season 1
In this episode:
– Why "be more authentic" became one of the most repeated and least useful pieces of advice in leadership.
– How the field reached for an already-individualised idea of authenticity and ended up with a focus on self-awareness.
– The difference between self-referential and relational authenticity.
– Why the constraint most leaders are operating under is not an individual flaw but an organisational failure.
– Robert Sutton's research on the cost of bad bosses, and why those costs almost never get measured.
– A walk-back through the six foundational topics of Season 1 and what each one helps us resist.
References in this episode:
Robert Sutton The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't (2007)
Robert Sutton Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best… and Learn from the Worst (2010)
Bill George Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value (2003)
Jon Billsberry "Whither authentic leadership? From essentialist essence to constructionist reconstruction" in Management Review Quarterly, December 2025
Episodes referenced in the walk-back:
We Are Losing Respect
The Power Paradox
The Confidence Trap
The End of Why
Trust: The Broken Spine
Daring to Care
...more
25min
May 14, 2026Practicing Care
The Reflection Episode on Caring Leadership
In this episode:
How care propagates through three degrees of social connection.
The first practice: Small acts of care in daily life that you can apply immediately.
The second practice: A short reflection on four trust dimensions to consider before a difficult conversation.
Practical countermeasures you can use when one of the trust dimensions has been weak in the past.
The third practice: Three checks that help you focus and act on what someone needs.
Why recognising the limits of your responsibility is itself a caring move.
Next episode: Season-closing with Authenticity and the 6 key leadership practices.
Episodes mentioned:
Daring to Care
Trust: The Broken Spine
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
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Website
...more
13min
May 12, 2026Daring to Care
We Got Lost in Translation by Focusing too Much on Empathy
In this episode:
The difference between empathy and care.
Why most of us have been missing one half of the picture.
Daniel Goleman's update on empathy and the third capability most leadership training still doesn't teach.
Tania Singer's neuroscience on why empathy drains us and why care doesn't.
Dark empathy and why empathy training makes some leaders more manipulative.
Nel Noddings on motivational displacement and what care actually requires.
Practices follow in the reflection episode on Thursday.
Resources mentioned:
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1995) and his update with Paul Ekman on the three kinds of empathy.
Tania Singer's neuroscience research on empathy and compassion.
Robert Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader (1970).
Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984).
Kim Scott, Radical Candor (2017).
Nadja Heym et al., The Dark Empath: A Personality Profile (2021), Nottingham Trent University.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
...more
27min
May 08, 2026Rebuilding Trust in Yourself and with Others
The Reflection Episode on Bringing Trust Back in the Age of AI
In this episode:
Why most of us name honesty as a value but do not really live it.
A personal story about kindness I received from a stranger and what it changed in how I move through the world.
Why most of us trade honesty for comfort in small daily moments, and why breaks trust.
Two practices for rebuilding self-trust:
naming what you stand for
choosing discomfort
Two practices for building trust with others:
noticing the commitments you keep
asking before assuming
Referenced in this episode:
The Broken Spine
Sabini, Siepmann, and Stein-Seroussi on anticipated embarrassment, Personality and Individual Differences
Next episode: Daring to Care
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
...more
16min
May 04, 2026Trust: The Broken Spine
Bringing Trust Back in the Age of AI
In this episode:
Why trust is a volatile value
Why even leaders who founded their company on clear principles and values are subject to the same pressures every leader faces
Why three of the most common trust-breaking leadership behaviours are not communication failures
The distinction between self-trust and self-confidence
Can we bring trust back, especially in the age of AI?
The episode answers that question.
But the answer requires more from us than from the leaders we want to follow.
Referenced in this episode:
The Power Paradox
The Confidence Trap
Careless Leaders blog article](https://thenewworkplaybook.com/careless-leaders/))
Dario Amodei on 60 Minutes (CBS, 2024)
Machines of Loving Grace by Dario Amodei ](https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace))
Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/2025/12/most-employees-dont-trust-their-leaders-heres-what-to-do-about-it))
Next: The reflection episode on Friday gives the practices for keeping self-trust and building trust with others.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
...more
21min
May 01, 2026Reclaiming Our Curiosity
The Reflection Episode on Curiosity in the Age of AI
In this episode:
Why the goldfish attention span claim is fabricated, and where the number actually came from.
The same shape behind the ten-percent brain myth, and what these stories have in common.
Why most of us track our successes but never the times we were wrong.
The Curiosity Journal: a holding place for curiosity that arrives at inconvenient moments.
"Keep asking": how the surface answer becomes the starting point, not the destination.
How large language models actually work, and why the shape of your prompt determines what comes back.
Two practices for sparking curiosity in the people you lead: modelling the not-knowing, and protecting the space.
Mentioned in this episode:
Episode 1: The Lazy Human.
Episode 4: The Confidence Trap.
Episode 5: The End of Why (the main episode this reflection follows).
Next episode: The Broken Spine.
Connect with me:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Website
...more
17min

FAQs about THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK:

How many episodes does THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK have?

The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.