Breaking Script

Tina Vatanka Murphy

Join Tina Vatanka Murphy for unscripted conversations with leaders who challenge norms, take bold risks, and rise through uncertainty. Breaking Script explores the human side of leadership, including fear, failure, resilience, and the ideas redefining the future across business and healthcare.

Episodes

  1. Restless Leadership: How Great Leaders Find the Signal and Cut the Noise

    12/09/2025

    Restless Leadership: How Great Leaders Find the Signal and Cut the Noise

    Driving lasting performance through people-first leadership and the discipline to keep pushing even when you’re winning. What separates leaders who thrive in complexity from leaders who get trapped in it? Clarity and the courage to keep choosing it. In this episode, Tina sits down with Mike Mahoney, Chairman and CEO of Boston Scientific, for a candid conversation on leading at scale without losing speed or soul. Mike shares how he filters signal from noise, sets future-back direction, and anchors teams on a small number of priorities that truly move the needle. They explore the operating model shifts that push decisions closer to the work, why bureaucracy seems to creep back, unless leaders fight it, and what “restless leadership” looks like when a company is already winning. Mike also unpacks disciplined innovation, taking smart risks, knowing when to stop what won’t scale, and leading transparently through hard moments, including a defining COVID decision to protect people first. He closes with a simple truth: the most effective CEOs stay close to the trenches, accessible, learning fast, and human enough to hear what’s real. Clarification (17:40): Mike misspoke on the temporary COVID-era pay adjustment. The organization shifted to a four-day paid week (not three) and kept it for one quarter (not 30 days). His larger point about protecting the business and preserving jobs stands.

    28 min
  2. If Not Courageous Leadership, Then What? Introducing, Breaking Script.

    11/13/2025

    If Not Courageous Leadership, Then What? Introducing, Breaking Script.

    In this opening episode of Breaking Script, host Tina Vatanka Murphy reflects on a moment that reinforced her beliefs about what real leadership requires. It came from a professor who reminded a room of CEOs that the only way to lead through uncertainty and disruption is with bold, courageous leadership. That call to action sparked the idea for this podcast: a space for real, unvarnished conversations with CEOs, authors, changemakers, and healthcare leaders who are rewriting the rules when old playbooks no longer match the moment. Listeners will hear stories of fear, failure, resilience, and the pivotal choices leaders make when they’re standing at the edge of the unknown. Tina invites us to learn alongside her as guests share the moments that shaped them and how those lessons can help the next generation lead boldly through the change still ahead. Key Learnings Why this show exists: This is a space for honest leadership conversations that go beyond rehearsed talking points. The mindset required today: Real transformation starts with curiosity, not certainty. Leaders need the courage to rethink old assumptions. The source of innovative ideas: Some of the most powerful ideas emerge from unexpected places, especially as AI reshapes how modern businesses reinvent themselves. What listeners can expect to gain: High-signal insights on how influential leaders navigate change, pressure, and big strategic decisions.

    4 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Join Tina Vatanka Murphy for unscripted conversations with leaders who challenge norms, take bold risks, and rise through uncertainty. Breaking Script explores the human side of leadership, including fear, failure, resilience, and the ideas redefining the future across business and healthcare.