Leadership advice is everywhere—but leadership that actually works is rare.

In this episode of The Change Agent, Eric sits down with Dr. Valentina Schneider, a leadership advisor and organizational behavior researcher, to unpack what most leaders misunderstand about empathy, assertiveness, and effectiveness.

Drawing from years of academic research and real-world advisory work, Dr. Schneider challenges the false binary that leaders must choose between being nice or being effective. Through evidence-based insight, she explains why that belief is not only wrong—but actively damaging to teams, performance, and careers.

Together, they explore:

• Why conflict is still mostly destructive—and how leaders can make it productive
• The critical difference between cognitive empathy and emotional contagion
• How over-assertiveness quietly erodes trust, safety, and performance
• Why leadership effectiveness lives in a narrow “middle ground” most leaders miss
• How gender norms rig the leadership game—and what leaders can do about it
• Why data, when misused, reinforces bias instead of truth
• How cross-functional teams fail without emotional intelligence at the centre

This is not a conversation about soft skills.
It’s about leadership under pressure, where decisions carry consequences and behaviour sets the emotional temperature of entire organisations.

If you lead people, manage conflict, or operate in high-stakes environments where clarity is rare and responsibility is heavy—this episode will change how you think about leadership.

🎧 Listen closely. The science is clear—but the work is yours.

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Most organisations don’t fail because they lack strategy.
They fail because reality changes faster than their plans.

In this episode of The Change Agent, Eric sits down with Mike Jones, Founder and Director of LBI Consulting, to unpack what leadership and strategy actually look like when certainty disappears and complexity takes over.

Drawing on his experience as a former British Army officer and leadership instructor at Sandhurst, as well as his work advising organisations across rail, healthcare, infrastructure, and large-scale enterprises, Mike challenges one of the most deeply held assumptions in modern leadership: that more clarity is always better.

Instead, he introduces a more uncomfortable — and more effective — idea: strategic ambiguity.

This conversation explores why over-specified strategies create fragility, how leaders can set clear intent without strangling execution, and why trust, decentralised decision-making, and freedom of action are essential in complex environments.

Together, Eric and Mike discuss:

• Why strategy should be treated as a practice, not a static plan
• How mission command enables adaptability without chaos
• When clarity helps leaders — and when it quietly makes things worse
• The role of trust and mistake-making in high-performing teams
• How organisational structure drives behaviour, not slogans or culture decks
• Why psychometrics and cognitive diversity matter more than personality labels
• How leaders can re-orient in uncertainty instead of clinging to control
• What to do when leadership climate above you is misaligned or corrosive

This is not a conversation about frameworks, buzzwords, or leadership theatre.
It’s about how strategy actually gets executed by real people under pressure.

If you’re a senior leader, programme manager, executive, or anyone navigating complexity where the stakes are real and the answers are incomplete, this episode will challenge how you think about leadership, control, and responsibility.

🎙️ Listen now — and learn why the ability to hold intent firmly, plans loosely, and ego lightly may be the most important leadership capability of our time.

Learn More About:

LBI Consulting

Mike Jones on LinkedIn

Mike's podcast - "Strategy Meets Reality"

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In this episode of The Change Agent, Eric sits down once again with Dr. Kevin Mays to explore one of the most uncomfortable—and defining—realities of leadership: chaos.

When certainty collapses, plans fail, and people look to you for answers you don’t yet have, how you show up matters more than what you know. Together, Eric and Dr. Mays unpack why our obsession with clarity can actually undermine leadership, how expertise can quietly become a liability, and why the most effective leaders learn to stand calmly in uncertainty rather than rush to control it.

This conversation dives deep into:

• Why leaders must learn to be okay with not knowing
• How emotional reactivity spreads through teams—and how calm does the same
• The hidden ways identity and ego block growth and innovation
• Why leadership is less about answers and more about presence
• How great leaders create other leaders, not followers

Drawing on real-world leadership experience—from military command to executive coaching—this episode challenges the idea that leadership is about certainty, authority, or control. Instead, it reframes leadership as an internal discipline: leading yourself first, so others can follow with confidence.

If you lead people in complex, high-pressure environments—or if you aspire to—this episode offers practical insight into navigating chaos without losing yourself or your team.

Send us a message and let’s connect!

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Support Our Show On Apple Podcasts!

Support Us On YouTube by Subscribing!

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