Episode 44: INTEGRITY is NOT a Liability in the C-Suite. It’s Your Competitive Edge | Interview with Rusty Atkinson

Episode 44: INTEGRITY is NOT a Liability in the C-Suite. It’s Your Competitive Edge | Interview with Rusty Atkinson

Rusty Atkinson spent twenty-five years climbing into the highest levels of corporate technology, including time as a CIO, and he vowed not to stop caring about his people in order to get there. In this Worthy to Lead podcast conversation, we get into the real cost of leading with integrity: the rooms Rusty wasn't invited to and why he'd make the same trade every time. He walks us through the six stumbling blocks he identifies in his book, The Integrity Edge, from lack of trust and unchecked ambition to the slow drift toward a toxic culture, and he hands us a Courage Model for building the kind of conviction that holds up when the stakes are high, not just when it's convenient. If you've ever assumed that toughening up and caring less is just part of the job description at the top, this is your permission slip to choose another path. REFERENCES: The Integrity Edge by Rusty Atkinson: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FRN8YWKM [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FRN8YWKM] Love as a Business Strategy by Mohammad Anwar: https://www.loveasabusinessstrategy.com/ [https://www.loveasabusinessstrategy.com/] CONNECT WITH RUSTY: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rustyatkinson/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rustyatkinson/] CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA: Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/ [https://www.worthytolead.co/] LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona [https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/ [https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/] Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com [https://worthytolead.substack.com]

Episode 43: How Coaching Changed Everything About How I Lead

For once, I'm not the host – I'm the guest. My friend and fellow coach Laurie Hall flips the script and interviews me about my own path: small-town Minnesota roots, unglamorous first jobs, and getting thrown into leadership with zero training. My early stumbles led me to coaching – the moment that changed how I lead for good – and into 23 years of building teams and inventing new roles for myself inside corporate. We talk about why I left a job I loved at Amazon at the start of 2025, the "human-centered leadership flywheel" behind my membership community now, and the mindset shift I keep coming back to: your work is not your worth. If I could create my own role inside four different companies, why couldn't I build the one I actually wanted outside of all of them? I hope this gives you permission to ask the questions you've been putting off. Be the first to know about new episodes, insights, and resources. Join my email list at https://www.WorthyToLead.co/subscribe [https://www.WorthyToLead.co/subscribe] CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA: Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/ [https://www.worthytolead.co/] LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona [https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/ [https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/] Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/ [https://worthytolead.substack.com/] 🎧 LISTEN TO LAURIE'S EPISODE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-40-from-nasa-engineer-to-leadership-coach-navigating/id1748949789?i=1000768552476  [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-40-from-nasa-engineer-to-leadership-coach-navigating/id1748949789?i=1000768552476] CONNECT WITH LAURIE: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriehallformerlypeterson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriehallformerlypeterson] Website: https://newhorizonstrategies.com/ [https://newhorizonstrategies.com/]

Episode 42: From Fear to Fluency: VP Andy Vitale on How to Lead AI Innovation with Confidence

Andy Vitale has been building with AI since 2015, across healthcare, banking, mortgage, marketing, and now tax software, long before it became a leadership talking point. He was auto-suggesting medical codes at 3M before most people knew what machine learning was. He helped increase loan volume at Rocket Companies by billions of dollars through conversational AI. And now, as VP and Head of Product Design and AI Center of Excellence at TaxWell, he is shipping AI-powered features within a single tax season while spending 75% of his week in AI-related work, at the VP level, hands-on. In this conversation, we trace that full arc: what it looked like to build with AI before it was a trend, how product teams are working differently now, why design systems have become a competitive moat, and what separates the leaders who will thrive in this moment from the ones who quietly become speed bumps. If you have been feeling the pressure to get fluent in AI and lead your team through a transition you are still figuring out yourself, this episode is worth a listen. REFERENCES: Claude: https://claude.ai [https://claude.ai] Wisprflow: https://wisprflow.ai [https://wisprflow.ai] Figma Make: https://www.figma.com/make/ [https://www.figma.com/make/] Cursor: https://cursor.com/ [https://cursor.com/] CONNECT WITH ANDY: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyvitale/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyvitale/] Website: https://www.andyvitale.com/ [https://www.andyvitale.com/] Design Executive Council: https://www.designexecutivecouncil.com/ [https://www.designexecutivecouncil.com/] CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA: Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/ [https://www.worthytolead.co/] LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona [https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/ [https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/] Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/ [https://worthytolead.substack.com/]

Episode 41: The Phrase That Changed Everything: "I Can Fit That In" with Erin Coupe

Erin Coupe spent over 17 years inside high-performance corporate environments: Goldman Sachs, CBRE, Fortune 140 companies. She was commuting 10 to 12 hours a week, working 60-plus hours, and building a career that looked impressive from the outside. Then her body started breaking down. Fainting in elevators. Stress rashes treated with steroids. A quiet but persistent sense that something was deeply wrong. What followed was a years-long process of unlearning: not just habits, but beliefs she had never consciously chosen in the first place. Beliefs shaped by a childhood marked by poverty, a terminally ill father, and a survival mode that followed her straight into the boardroom. Erin is now an international keynote speaker, executive advisor, and bestselling author of I Can Fit That In, named a 2026 Next List Selection by JP Morgan. She works with leadership teams to expand capacity, increase sustainable performance, and shift the energy of entire organizations, starting with the individuals at the top. In this conversation, we get into what it cost her to live inside hustle culture for so long, what helped her to start owning her own energy, the importance of daily rituals (not just routines), and what actually moves the needle towards a sustainable work culture. If you have ever felt like you are carrying too much, or quietly wondering how long you can keep operating at your current pace, this conversation is for you. CONNECT WITH ERIN: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-coupe/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-coupe/] Website: https://www.erincoupe.com/ [https://www.erincoupe.com/] Instagram: https://instagram.com/authenticallyec [https://instagram.com/authenticallyec] I CAN FIT THAT IN: https://www.erincoupe.com/i-can-fit-that-in [https://www.erincoupe.com/i-can-fit-that-in] CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA: Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/ [https://www.worthytolead.co/] LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona [https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/ [https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/] Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/ [https://worthytolead.substack.com/]

Episode 40: From NASA Engineer to Leadership Coach: Navigating Life's Chaos with Authenticity & Purpose with Laurie Hall

Laurie Hall spent years working on space exploration and the International Space Station. She was a chemical engineer at NASA and Lockheed Martin, doing exactly what she had dreamed about since she was a kid growing up in Kansas. And then, around year ten, a nagging question started to emerge: Is this still what I’m meant to be doing? What followed wasn't a clean pivot. It was a five-year transition, grief she hadn't anticipated, and a slow process of figuring out who she actually was outside of the identity she had spent her whole career building. When Laurie lost her sister to suicide, something shifted. Her soul needed to see the difference she was making in people's lives directly and up close. That's what led her to found New Horizon Strategies in 2011, where she now leads a global team of coaches and facilitators helping leaders navigate change with clarity and confidence. She also shares the "lifeline" exercise she uses with organizations to help people reconnect with what has shaped them, why she considers "should," "ought to," and "supposed to" red flag words in any coaching conversation, and what she wishes someone had told her when she was beating herself up for caring more about people than problem sets. CONNECT WITH LAURIE: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriehallformerlypeterson/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriehallformerlypeterson/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lauriehallformerlypeterson [https://www.facebook.com/lauriehallformerlypeterson]  CONNECT WITH NEW HORIZON STRATEGIES: Website: https://newhorizonstrategies.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newhorizonstrategies [https://www.facebook.com/newhorizonstrategies] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-horizon-strategies-llc [https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-horizon-strategies-llc] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9Yj-Amk7drvg8uaaZzG0g [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9Yj-Amk7drvg8uaaZzG0g] CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA: Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/ [https://www.worthytolead.co/] LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona [https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/ [https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/] Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/ [https://worthytolead.substack.com/]