Partnering Leadership

Mahan Tavakoli
  • 5.0 (32)
  • Management
  • Updated Semiweekly

Partnering Leadership is an award-winning global podcast for CEOs, board members, and senior executives who want to think more clearly about what is changing, what may be coming next, and what it means for their organizations. Hosted by Mahan Tavakoli, the podcast draws on 450+ conversations with CEOs, founders, researchers, futurists, and leading thinkers on strategy, leadership, organizational transformation, innovation, and AI. The conversations go beyond generic leadership advice.  They explore the questions senior leaders increasingly need to wrestle with: What is changing that could reshape our business? Which assumptions about strategy, customers, work, and organizations may no longer hold? What will AI change beyond productivity? Where might value move next? How should organizations and leadership evolve as the answers change? Guests have included Ram Charan, John Kotter, Stephen M.R. Covey, Ajay Agrawal, Azeem Azhar, Ranjay Gulati, Sangeet Paul Choudary, David Marquet, Bob Johansen, David Rubenstein, Jean Case, Paul Daugherty, Carolyn Dewar, Whitney Johnson, Ron Adner, and many others shaping how leaders think about strategy, organizations, technology, and the future of business. Mahan brings an advisor’s perspective to each conversation, pushing beyond surface-level answers to explore the choices, trade-offs, and implications that matter in the C-suite and boardroom. The result is a broader, more forward-looking perspective on the decisions leaders are making today and the ones they may need to make sooner than they think. Available on all major podcast platforms and at PartneringLeadership.com.

  1. 4d ago

    472 Beyond AI Adoption: How to Reinvent Your Organization for the Age of Abundant Intelligence with Brian Solis and Dave Wright

    What happens to the way we design organizations when intelligence is no longer scarce? That is the provocative question at the heart of this conversation with Brian Solis and Dave Wright, co-authors of Infinite: How Visionary Leaders Transform Today’s Business Into AI-Forward Companies. Drawing on decades of experience at the intersection of technology, strategy, innovation, and enterprise transformation, Brian and Dave challenge executives to think beyond AI adoption and productivity gains toward a much larger opportunity: rethinking how organizations create value. The conversation explores why simply layering AI onto existing workflows may leave much of its potential untapped. Organizations were largely designed around scarcity, particularly the scarcity and cost of human expertise and capacity. AI changes that assumption. Brian and Dave discuss what becomes possible when leaders stop asking only how AI can make today’s work faster and begin asking what the organization could do that previously wasn’t possible. A central tension throughout the episode is the difference between efficiency and reinvention. Dave shares a compelling example from IKEA that illustrates how productivity gains from AI can become the starting point for entirely new sources of value rather than simply cost reduction. Brian builds on that idea by challenging executives to examine the legacy assumptions, structures, and even “sacred cows” they may be protecting. The question is not simply where AI can be deployed, but where intelligence can be applied to rethink work, customer value, and future growth. The discussion also gets into the harder leadership questions surrounding AI transformation: employee fear, trust, learning and unlearning, resource allocation, and the pressure from boards and shareholders to demonstrate ROI. Brian and Dave explain why AI transformation cannot simply be delegated to technology teams or pursued through disconnected pilots. They explore what it takes to create enough clarity and trust for people to challenge poor uses of AI while also experimenting with fundamentally different ways of working. For CEOs and senior executives, this conversation offers a useful reframing of the AI opportunity. The advantage may not go to the organizations that deploy the most AI or generate the largest number of productivity gains. It may go to those that learn how to convert new intelligence and capacity into better workflows, new sources of value, and the ability to continually reinvent themselves. Actionable Takeaways You’ll learn why an AI strategy shouldn’t really be about AI and what Brian and Dave believe executives should focus on instead when deciding where AI belongs in the organization.Hear why using AI to make existing work faster may capture only a fraction of its potential, and how shifting from optimization to reinvention changes the questions executives should be asking.Discover what changes when intelligence moves from scarcity toward abundance, including why organizational structures and workflows designed for the previous era may increasingly become constraints.Hear how IKEA turned AI-driven efficiency into a new source of growth, offering a powerful example of what can happen when organizations deliberately reinvest capacity rather than simply bank the savings.You’ll learn why trust around AI requires more than encouraging adoption. Brian and Dave explain why people also need the freedom to challenge AI and say when it is not the right tool for the job.Explore the concept of “learning velocity” and why the ability to learn and unlearn at speed may become an increasingly important organizational capability as AI continues to evolve.Hear why disconnected AI pilots often struggle to produce meaningful enterprise ROI, and why resource allocation and executive-level direction become critical when productivity gains appear across different parts of the organization.You’ll learn why traditional AI metrics can be dangerously misleading, and why measuring the performance of the entire workflow can reveal whether AI is actually creating better outcomes or merely generating more activity.Consider a provocative resource-allocation question: if AI effectively gave your organization hundreds of additional people’s worth of capacity, what would you choose to do with it? Connect with Brian Solis and Dave Wright Brian Solis LinkedIn Dave Wright LinkedIn Infinite: How Visionary Leaders Transform Today’s Business Into AI-Forward Companies Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    472 Beyond AI Adoption: How to Reinvent Your Organization for the Age of Abundant Intelligence with Brian Solis and Dave Wright

  2. Sep 8

    471 How to Ask Better Questions and Lead Through Uncertainty with Larry Robertson

    As uncertainty rises, people often look to leaders for greater certainty. Yet the more complex the environment becomes, the less credible it is for any one person to claim they have the answers. The leadership challenge is no longer simply making better decisions. It is creating the conditions for better questions, broader participation, and stronger collective judgment. In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli speaks with Larry Robertson, leadership advisor, Fulbright Scholar, and author of Great Question: The Art of the Ask and Getting More of What You Really Want. Drawing on his research into entrepreneurship, creativity, and leadership under uncertainty, Larry explains why questioning is not merely a communication technique. It is a core organizational capability that helps leaders test assumptions, recognize emerging threats, and see opportunities before they become obvious. The conversation examines the difference between asking more questions and building a genuinely questioning culture. Larry challenges leaders to consider whether the questions inside their organizations are authentic or simply statements disguised as questions. He also explores who is permitted to ask, which questions receive serious attention, and whether senior leaders are willing to be changed by what they hear. Mahan and Larry also address the growing role of artificial intelligence. AI can identify patterns and generate predictions from what has already happened, but that raises a consequential leadership question: What happens when the assumptions embedded in historical data no longer hold? Their discussion reveals why human curiosity, contextual judgment, and intellectual humility may become more important as AI becomes more capable. Throughout the conversation, Larry offers memorable ways to strengthen leadership judgment, from learning to “quiet your cleverness” and “listen atmospherically” to distinguishing functional questions from the great questions that shape strategy and direction. This episode provides a practical and timely examination of how CEOs and senior executives can lead without pretending to possess certainty they do not have. Actionable Takeaways You’ll learn why rising uncertainty should produce more and better questions, even as employees, boards, and stakeholders increasingly pressure leaders to provide definitive answers.Hear how the expectation that senior leaders should have all the answers can weaken organizational judgment and prevent essential information from reaching decision-makers.You’ll discover how to distinguish authentic inquiry from questions that are actually statements, challenges, or tests of allegiance.Hear why a questioning leader and a questioning culture are fundamentally different, and what must change before people throughout an organization feel able to challenge assumptions.You’ll learn what leaders can uncover by observing who asks questions, which questions receive attention, and where questioning quietly stops within the hierarchy.Hear how to distinguish functional questions that help operate the business from larger questions that can reshape its strategy, direction, and future value.You’ll discover why intellectual humility does not require leaders to minimize their expertise, but does require them to recognize when that expertise may no longer fit the situation.Hear how “quieting your cleverness” and “listening atmospherically” can help experienced executives notice context, signals, and perspectives they might otherwise miss.You’ll learn why AI’s reliance on historical patterns makes human questioning especially important when technologies, markets, and customer expectations are changing.Hear how forward-looking reflection can improve future judgment rather than merely helping leaders interpret decisions they have already made. Connect with Larry Robertson Larry Robertson Website Larry Robertson LinkedIn Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    471 How to Ask Better Questions and Lead Through Uncertainty with Larry Robertson

  3. Sep 3

    470 [Thursday Refresh] Leading Change: How Leaders Create Lasting Transformation with John Kotter

    In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli speaks with John Kotter, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, co-founder of a management consulting firm Kotter International and a pioneer in organizational change. John Kotter is the author of 22 books on change, including his most recent book, Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile times. John Kotter talks about the struggles leaders and teams face when it comes to change and how to transform organizations to adapt to change effectively and rapidly. Some highlights: -John Kotter on the role of human nature on our resistance to change -The essential components for initiating change in the organization -Understanding the Survive and Thrive mode and how it impacts our ability to change -The power of Guiding Coalition to help bring expertise, energy, and perspective across the organization -The difference between management and leadership Connect with John Kotter: Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times John Kotter - Kotter International Inc John Kotter on LinkedIn John Kotter on Facebook John Kotter on Twitter Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    470 [Thursday Refresh] Leading Change: How Leaders Create Lasting Transformation with John Kotter

  4. Sep 1

    469 Why AI Adoption Is a Psychology Problem, Not a Technology Problem with Gleb Tsipursky

    AI adoption is often treated as a technology challenge: choose the right tools, train people to use them, and drive implementation. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky argues that this framing misses the harder problem. Unlike previous technology shifts, AI can trigger fear about job security, challenge professional identity, and create social stigma around how work gets done. For organizations trying to move from experimentation to meaningful business impact, understanding those human dynamics may matter as much as the technology itself. In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Gleb Tsipursky joins Mahan Tavakoli to discuss his new book, The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results. Drawing on behavioral science research, thousands of survey responses, focus groups, and more than 100 consulting engagements, Gleb explains why traditional approaches to technology adoption often fall short with AI. The conversation examines the very different reasons employees resist, quietly embrace, or even hide their use of AI, and what those behaviors reveal about organizational culture. The discussion moves beyond adoption to a deeper question facing CEOs and senior executives: what happens when AI changes not only how quickly work gets done, but also how people understand the value they bring? Gleb explores professional identity, shadow AI, the critical role of middle managers, and why organizations may need to rethink where they begin their AI efforts. He also challenges the instinct to start by automating the highest-value activities, offering a counterintuitive approach designed to build trust, experimentation, and broader adoption. Mahan and Gleb also explore a growing leadership challenge: AI can dramatically increase output while making judgment more important. If AI increasingly generates reports, analysis, presentations, and other knowledge work, the differentiating human capability may shift from producing the first draft to evaluating whether the output is actually good. That raises important questions about how organizations develop early-career talent, redesign onboarding and apprenticeships, and build judgment when AI performs more of the work through which judgment was traditionally developed. Finally, the conversation looks ahead to an emerging workplace in which employees may increasingly manage AI agents rather than perform individual tasks themselves. Managers, in turn, may need to manage people who manage agents while coordinating increasingly complex human-machine workflows. The result is a conversation not simply about getting employees to use AI, but about the capabilities, culture, management practices, and continual learning organizations will need as AI becomes embedded in how work gets done. Actionable Takeaways You’ll learn why AI adoption creates psychological challenges that traditional technology implementations often do not, and why treating AI like another CRM, ERP, or software rollout can lead organizations to misdiagnose resistance.Hear how fear, professional identity, and social stigma can produce very different forms of AI resistance, requiring more nuanced responses than simply mandating adoption or providing additional training.You’ll discover why some employees may already be using AI extensively while deliberately hiding that use from colleagues and managers, and what this “shadow AI” behavior can cost organizations in shared learning and business impact.Hear why starting with the highest-value work may not always be the smartest path to AI adoption. Gleb explains why beginning with tasks employees actively dislike can create an unexpected path toward broader experimentation and acceptance.You’ll learn why executive behavior matters in establishing the social norms around AI use, including how openly sharing successful AI applications can help shift AI from something employees conceal to something teams learn from together.Hear why middle managers may become one of the most important leverage points in AI adoption, translating executive intent into the everyday behaviors, experimentation, reinforcement, and learning that determine whether adoption actually takes hold.You’ll explore why judgment may become more valuable as AI becomes better at producing work. The conversation examines the difference between generating an answer and knowing whether that answer is good enough to act on.You’ll hear why AI creates a significant challenge for developing younger professionals, particularly when technology begins performing the work through which previous generations accumulated experience and learned to recognize quality.You’ll learn how the role of employees and managers could change as AI agents become more capable, moving from personally executing individual tasks toward directing agents, evaluating their output, managing handoffs, and improving human-machine workflows.Hear why there may be no final state of “AI maturity.” Instead, organizations may need to build the capacity for continual learning as AI capabilities, workflows, and the skills required to manage them keep changing. Connect with Gleb Tsipursky Disaster Avoidance Experts Website Dr. Gleb Tsipursky LinkedIn Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    469 Why AI Adoption Is a Psychology Problem, Not a Technology Problem with Gleb Tsipursky

  5. Aug 25

    468 [Leadership Reset] The Performance Paradox: When Success Gets in the Way of Growth with Eduardo Briceño

    Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership. We have more access to ideas than ever before. More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights. The challenge isn’t finding more information. It’s spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead. I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren’t the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed. After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them. Throughout July and August, I’ll be sharing 10 of those conversations. They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next. Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends. —Mahan Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    468 [Leadership Reset] The Performance Paradox: When Success Gets in the Way of Growth with Eduardo Briceño

  6. Aug 18

    467 [Leadership Reset] How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Persuasion, and Transformation with David McRaney

    Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership. We have more access to ideas than ever before. More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights. The challenge isn’t finding more information. It’s spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead. I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren’t the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed. After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them. Throughout July and August, I’ll be sharing 10 of those conversations. They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next. Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends. —Mahan Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    467 [Leadership Reset] How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Persuasion, and Transformation with David McRaney

  7. Aug 11

    466 [Leadership Reset] Trust & Inspire: Why the Future of Leadership Requires a Different Operating System with Stephen M. R. Covey

    Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership. We have more access to ideas than ever before. More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights. The challenge isn’t finding more information. It’s spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead. I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren’t the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed. After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them. Throughout July and August, I’ll be sharing 10 of those conversations. They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next. Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends. —Mahan Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    466 [Leadership Reset] Trust & Inspire: Why the Future of Leadership Requires a Different Operating System with Stephen M. R. Covey

  8. Aug 6

    465 [Leadership Reset] CEO Excellence: The Mindsets and Practices of the World’s Best CEOs with Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vik Malhotra

    Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership. We have more access to ideas than ever before. More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights. The challenge isn’t finding more information. It’s spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead. I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren’t the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed. After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them. Throughout July and August, I’ll be sharing 10 of those conversations. They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next. Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends. —Mahan Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website  Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn  Partnering Leadership Website

    465 [Leadership Reset] CEO Excellence: The Mindsets and Practices of the World’s Best CEOs with Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vik Malhotra
See All (473)

Trailer

5
out of 5
32 Ratings

About

Partnering Leadership is an award-winning global podcast for CEOs, board members, and senior executives who want to think more clearly about what is changing, what may be coming next, and what it means for their organizations. Hosted by Mahan Tavakoli, the podcast draws on 450+ conversations with CEOs, founders, researchers, futurists, and leading thinkers on strategy, leadership, organizational transformation, innovation, and AI. The conversations go beyond generic leadership advice.  They explore the questions senior leaders increasingly need to wrestle with: What is changing that could reshape our business? Which assumptions about strategy, customers, work, and organizations may no longer hold? What will AI change beyond productivity? Where might value move next? How should organizations and leadership evolve as the answers change? Guests have included Ram Charan, John Kotter, Stephen M.R. Covey, Ajay Agrawal, Azeem Azhar, Ranjay Gulati, Sangeet Paul Choudary, David Marquet, Bob Johansen, David Rubenstein, Jean Case, Paul Daugherty, Carolyn Dewar, Whitney Johnson, Ron Adner, and many others shaping how leaders think about strategy, organizations, technology, and the future of business. Mahan brings an advisor’s perspective to each conversation, pushing beyond surface-level answers to explore the choices, trade-offs, and implications that matter in the C-suite and boardroom. The result is a broader, more forward-looking perspective on the decisions leaders are making today and the ones they may need to make sooner than they think. Available on all major podcast platforms and at PartneringLeadership.com.

Information

  • Creator
    Mahan Tavakoli
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    473
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Partnering Leadership
  • Show Website
    Partnering Leadership