182: Trust-First Leadership In The Age Of AI, with Tamar Cohen

182: Trust-First Leadership In The Age Of AI, with Tamar Cohen

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2070261/fan_mail/new] A CEO calls employees “low-value human capital,” companies brag about AI while cutting people loose, and somehow, workers are told to just be resilient. To be honest about what that does to trust and what leaders can do differently, I sat down with Tamar Cohen, founder of Halo Effect, to talk about the real human cost of fear-based management and the very real business costs that follow. Tamar shares two stories that changed how she thinks about leadership: one boss who responded to a scary personal moment with a simple, powerful line, “Tell me what you need, I’ll get it for you,” and another who pushed her to deliver a high-stakes presentation while she had pneumonia. We use those extremes to distinguish between supportive and dehumanizing leadership, especially in high-pressure environments where burnout is always lurking. From there, we dig into resilience as momentum, why trust is a lagging indicator, and why layoffs don’t magically create efficiency when the people who remain are disillusioned and overloaded.  We also talk about the AI bubble and what it really costs companies, from data cleaning to training to massive infrastructure bets, and why the promised ROI can be harder to reach than leaders admit. Most importantly, we lay out a practical, human-centered AI operating model: be transparent, bring employees into decisions about the AI tools you want to use, invest in real upskilling, map processes before automating, and communicate clearly about how roles will evolve.  If you care about employee experience, organizational culture, the future of work, and leading through AI without breaking trust, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with the best (or worst) leadership line you’ve ever heard. Tamar Cohen is the CEO and Founder of HaloEffect. She doesn’t talk about employee engagement, she’s working to replace it. She equips leaders with a new operating model for work experience in an era where AI, distributed work, and trust erosion are reshaping how people contribute. With a background in CX, EX, and organizational design across global enterprises, she translates complex workforce signals into strategies that drive retention, performance, and belief in the workplace. * Email: tcohen@myhaloeffect.com [tcohen@myhaloeffect.com] * Website: www.myhaloeffect.com [http://www.myhaloeffect.com/]  * LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tamarcohen [http://www.linkedin.com/in/tamarcohen] Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2051964] Start for FREE Support the show [https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=C4JKFGYRKGMGG] __________ Producer / Editor: Neel Panji [https://www.podleafproductions.com/about] Invite Manya [https://manyachylinski.com/] to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services [https://www.manyachylinski.com/services] Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes [https://www.manyachylinski.com/notes] Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us. #trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

181: Whose Choice Are You Living? With Graham Skidmore

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2070261/fan_mail/new] If you’ve ever looked at your career and thought, “I did everything right, so why do I feel so wrong?” this conversation is for you. We sit down with Graham Skidmore, co-founder of Harmony Health, to unpack what happens when corporate success collides with wellbeing and why the system can feel fine until you step outside the lanes it was built for. We talk about the moment Graham hit the C-suite in a 20,000-person organization and realized he was the most miserable he’d ever been. From there, we get practical with a definition of happiness he uses as a compass: leading a life of self-guided choices while loving yourself, others, and your surroundings. That leads to one of the simplest, most disruptive questions you can ask on a hard day: whose choices am I operating on right now? Then we zoom out to leadership, resilience, and the future of work. We challenge one-size-fits-all systems that demand conformity and then blame individuals for struggling. We explore individualized support, neurodiversity, and why investing in humans as individuals can unlock overlooked talent. We also take a human-centric look at artificial intelligence: AI as a way to augment human intelligence, personalize learning, and free people to do the creative, empathic, problem-solving work machines can’t. If you care about employee wellbeing, ethical AI, and building healthier workplaces that actually fit real people, you’ll get a lot from this one. Graham Skidmore believes we can create a world of happy, healthy, productive and empowered people, by investing in people as individuals and their potential.  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-skidmore [https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-skidmore] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@understandingthescienceofyou [https://www.youtube.com/@understandingthescienceofyou] Harmony Health Institute: https://harmonyhealthinstitute.com/ [https://harmonyhealthinstitute.com/] Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2051964] Start for FREE Support the show [https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=C4JKFGYRKGMGG] __________ Producer / Editor: Neel Panji [https://www.podleafproductions.com/about] Invite Manya [https://manyachylinski.com/] to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services [https://www.manyachylinski.com/services] Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes [https://www.manyachylinski.com/notes] Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us. #trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

180: Human-Centered Leadership, with Chase Sterling

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2070261/fan_mail/new] We sit down with Chase Sterling, workplace well-being expert and founder of the Wellbeing Think Tank, to get honest about what support actually looks like when someone is stressed, grieving, or barely holding it together. The throughline is resilience—a human process that requires time, space, and genuine psychological safety at work. We talk human-centered leadership in practical terms: focusing on the human so performance follows, recognizing that people bring invisible burdens into meetings, and building cultures of belonging that do not depend on fake cheerfulness.  Chase shares why non-toxic positivity matters, how leaders can hold space instead of trying to fix emotions, and why transparency beats polished messaging. We also talk about feedback, accountability, and giving people a clear chance to change. Then we zoom out to the systems level: employee retention, turnover cost, healthcare costs, and the future of work. Chase challenges the current moment of record profits paired with layoffs, calls out when greed drives decisions, and argues that AI is a useful automation tool but not a replacement for critical thinking, creativity, and humane judgment.  If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a manager or teammate, and leave a review.  What is one thing a leader has said or done that made you feel genuinely supported at work? Chase Sterling, MA, is a speaker and the founder and executive director of Wellbeing Think Tan [https://www.wellbeingthinktank.org/]k known for amplifying experts over influencers and providing educational events that support individual and organizational wellbeing. Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2051964] Start for FREE Support the show [https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=C4JKFGYRKGMGG] __________ Producer / Editor: Neel Panji [https://www.podleafproductions.com/about] Invite Manya [https://manyachylinski.com/] to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services [https://www.manyachylinski.com/services] Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes [https://www.manyachylinski.com/notes] Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us. #trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

179: Always Be Curious, with Chris March

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2070261/fan_mail/new] Your first move as a leader is probably not what you think.  Before the strategy deck, before the new plan, the faster path to trust and better results is to be genuinely curious and listen like you mean it. I’m joined by executive advisor Chris March, who helps founder-led companies scale beyond the founder without losing operational control, and we dig into what resilient leadership looks like when things get real.  Chris shares a defining leadership test from the COVID era, when travel shut down and leaders had to deliver heartbreaking news. We talk about why transparency and directness can be more humane, how to prepare for uncomfortable conversations, and a simple question that changes everything: What outcome do we want from this talk?  Then we get practical: Chris lays out a listening tour you can run when you take over a role, including the exact questions that surface what’s working, what’s broken, and why people show up every day. We challenge the idea that the only reward is a management title, and we close with Chris’s essentials for modern leadership: keep learning, protect your health, and build communication skills (yes, Toastmasters counts).  Website: https://chrismarchcoaching.com/ [https://chrismarchcoaching.com/] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherrmarch/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherrmarch/] If this helped you rethink how you lead, subscribe, share it with a manager or founder, and leave a review so more people can find the show.  What is one question you’re going to ask your team this week? Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2051964] Start for FREE Support the show [https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=C4JKFGYRKGMGG] __________ Producer / Editor: Neel Panji [https://www.podleafproductions.com/about] Invite Manya [https://manyachylinski.com/] to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services [https://www.manyachylinski.com/services] Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes [https://www.manyachylinski.com/notes] Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us. #trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

178: Real Recovery Is Slow And That Is Normal

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2070261/fan_mail/new] One screw in a piece of drywall doesn't usually feel profound. This time it did. Standing in a gutted house in Altadena, California, more than a year after the Eaton Fire, I felt the absurd weight of wildfire recovery and the despair that comes from doing something tiny to address an enormous problem. Then my mind shifted: rebuilding is not made of big, triumphant moments. It is made of the next screw, the next sheet of drywall, the next task you can actually do. We talk about what disaster recovery really looks like: homes still stripped to the studs, insurance disputes dragging on, and many families still displaced. From there, we zoom out to mental health after disaster, including the second disaster that can hit months later when the urgency is gone, the news cycle has moved on, and survivors are left with paperwork, grief, and a long road. We name the human realities: insomnia, nightmares, avoidance, and the way housing instability can intensify stress long after debris is cleared. Finally, we get honest about the systems around recovery. Deadlines, application windows, nonprofit metrics, and donor expectations can pressure people to perform healing on a schedule, then blame them when they are still struggling at 18 months, 3 years, or 5. I share what a healthier long-term recovery infrastructure could look like, and why resilience is not a personality trait or a finish line. It’s a practice, and it’s usually invisible. If you’re navigating trauma recovery or supporting someone in the long tail of a disaster, listen through and share this with a friend who needs it. Subscribe to Notes on Resilience and leave a review so more people can find the steadier, truer story of how healing happens. Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2051964] Start for FREE Support the show [https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=C4JKFGYRKGMGG] __________ Producer / Editor: Neel Panji [https://www.podleafproductions.com/about] Invite Manya [https://manyachylinski.com/] to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services [https://www.manyachylinski.com/services] Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes [https://www.manyachylinski.com/notes] Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us. #trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor