Worthy to Lead

Kristiana Corona

SUBSCRIBE to get alerted anytime I release new episodes and free tools & resources: https://www.worthytolead.co/subscribe Have you ever thought to yourself: “How can I get to be one of those leaders who truly inspires their team? I don't just want to manage the work, I want to impact the trajectory of their career." Maybe you want to be more strategic, but you’re constantly stuck in the weeds, feeling overwhelmed by managing all the details. You find yourself tethered to the desk, making every decision, and desperately wishing you could take a vacation without things falling apart. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Whether you are a new leader, an aspiring leader, or an experienced leader who has seen it all, this podcast has you covered. Kristiana Corona is a corporate leader, mom of 3, and certified executive coach. She's spent more than two decades building design and technology teams for Fortune 500 companies. Like so many leaders, she started off with very little training and made every mistake in the book. She felt completely unworthy of the title of “leader.” Along the way, a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed her life and led her to dramatically improve her leadership style and results. Fast forward to today and you’ll see the thriving teams that she has led: confident, resilient, strategic, and empowered. They’re making a real impact on the world. If you’re a leader looking for the tools, the mindset and the inspiration to help you become the leader you’ve always dreamed of - a leader who does feel worthy to lead - this podcast is for you. The Worthy to Lead Podcast is a business podcast that blends insights and interviews to provide you with the tools and mindset you need to develop teams of any size to be empowered and effective. Using techniques from executive coaching and other leadership best practices, you’ll learn to create a “coaching leadership style” that will transform the way you lead forever. Kristiana brings you step-by-step tools, frameworks, and insights into coaching, leadership, neuroscience, behavioral psychology, emotional intelligence, focus, mindset, and so much more. She won’t shy away from sharing personal stories of her own mistakes and challenges (and yes, there have been so many!). She dives deep, shares real talk, and takes the learnings to help guide you on the path to overcoming similar challenges for yourself. Along the way, she’ll interview amazing and inspiring leaders and experts across many industries who share their personal journey to feeling worthy and the strategies that got them there. Each episode is packed with inspiration and practical steps that you can use to start taking action today. Learn the best-kept secrets of coaching as a leadership style and how it can transform your life and unlock new potential in your teams. Join us as we go deep and explore what it takes to build an authentic leadership style that you, and others, are going to love.

  1. Oct 22

    Episode 51: Innovation isn’t Random: Amazon Design Leader, Lexie Spiro, on the Process for Thinking Bigger

    Where do big ideas actually come from? For Lexie Spiro, Director of Amazon Delivery Experience, they come from a process you can learn and repeat. Lexie has spent more than 20 years leading design and research for Fortune 500 companies, including almost 15 years at Motorola. Today he leads design and research across Amazon’s delivery network, from the customer experience to the tools DSP drivers and delivery partners use every day. In this episode, Lexie walks Kristiana through how he generates and refines ideas that get built. He explains why unconstrained thinking still needs constraints, and how designing around one constraint at a time, setting it aside, and starting again can produce a hundred concepts fast. He shares why the best idea is rarely the first or even the twentieth, and how first principles and “durable customer outcomes” keep his team anchored to the root problem. They dig into backcasting from an ideal future, including how that kind of thinking helped bring 30-minute delivery to life with Amazon Now. Lexie also shares how he workshops a pitch the way Jerry Seinfeld workshops a joke, and how aligning on mental models before the meeting gets everyone thinking about the idea the same way before they ever see it. And when an idea gets rejected? Lexie talks about treating objections as a pressure test, getting comfortable being misunderstood for long periods of time, and holding onto conviction while the evidence catches up. If you have big ideas that keep stalling out, this episode gives you a process to keep them moving.Note: The views and opinions expressed by these contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or opinions of Amazon. CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacoronaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/ CONNECT WITH LEXIE:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexie

    Episode 51: Innovation isn’t Random: Amazon Design Leader, Lexie Spiro, on the Process for Thinking Bigger
  2. Aug 11

    Episode 46: FRICTION: How Tension, Emotion, and Change Reveal Better Leaders | with Dr. Maggie Sass and Dr. Ross Blankenship

    Dr. Maggie Sass and Dr. Ross Blankenship are consulting psychologists and executive coaches who have spent decades working with executives and senior leaders, and they came to a conclusion that changed how I think about emotions at work entirely. We’re often taught to push past tension or ignore the defensiveness that spikes during tough meetings. But Maggie and Ross argue that friction isn't a problem to solve, but critical information for making decisions. Emotions are the medium through which all work happens. Their new book, Friction: How Tension, Emotion, and Change Reveal Better Leaders, is backed by a national survey of over 1,100 working Americans, and it makes the case that human-centered leadership and emotional intelligence are becoming more essential, not less, as AI reshapes how we work. Order Dr. Ross and Dr. Maggie’s latest book, Friction:Website: https://www.talentsmarteq.com/friction/Amazon: https://a.co/d/09kK3yTq ADDITIONAL LINKS: Nir Eyal on habit-forming products: https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked/ MIT study on AI and cognitive load, "Your Brain on ChatGPT": https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/ Dr. Marc Brackett on the RULER framework for emotional intelligence: https://marcbrackett.com/ruler/ Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions: https://www.6seconds.org/2025/02/06/plutchik-wheel-emotions/ Lisa Feldman Barrett on how emotions are constructed by the brain: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/   CONNECT WITH MAGGIE:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiesass-phd/Website: https://www.talentsmarteq.com/ CONNECT WITH ROSS:Website: https://www.tuesdayadvisors.com/Substack: https://rossblankenship.substack.com/Website: https://www.rossblankenship.io/ CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacoronaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/

    Episode 46: FRICTION: How Tension, Emotion, and Change Reveal Better Leaders | with Dr. Maggie Sass and Dr. Ross Blankenship
  3. Jul 28

    Episode 45: Building Company Culture That Thrives with AI | with Dr. Kevin Sakamoto

    Dr. Kevin Sakamoto and I go way back. We worked together at Target, we've spent years comparing notes from our different corners of the world (he's a professor and product leader, I'm a design leader), and we enjoy diving deep and nerding out over leadership and innovation. We recently sat down to challenge how leaders are thinking about leading through AI. We get into the fear that some leaders are feeling right now: the quiet worry that their role, their relevance, their whole reason for being in the room might be slipping away. We talk about the IKEA case study that will truly make you rethink what's possible when a company decides to renew its people instead of replacing them. We dig into why middle management is having its own identity crisis, what an inverted apprenticeship looks like when your newest hire knows more about AI than you do, and why the smartest thing you can do right now might just be to gather everyone around a table to work through it together. If you've been bracing for impact instead of getting curious, this conversation is your invitation to try something different. REFERENCES: IKEA case study on AI-driven customer service and reskilling: https://employerbranding.news/resources/what-ikeas-ai-reskilling-story-looks-like-now-it-has-made-layoffs-too/  Entrepreneur.com article on the collapse of the middle manager layer: https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/as-companies-cut-managers-the-smart-ones-are-investing-in/498397  Zappos culture and the legacy of Tony Hsieh: https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithferrazzi/2024/07/10/the-new-growth-architects-three-companies-honoring-tony-hsiehs-legacy/ CONNECT WITH DR. KEVIN SAKAMOTO:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-h-sakamoto/  CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacoronaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/

    Episode 45: Building Company Culture That Thrives with AI | with Dr. Kevin Sakamoto

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About

SUBSCRIBE to get alerted anytime I release new episodes and free tools & resources: https://www.worthytolead.co/subscribe Have you ever thought to yourself: “How can I get to be one of those leaders who truly inspires their team? I don't just want to manage the work, I want to impact the trajectory of their career." Maybe you want to be more strategic, but you’re constantly stuck in the weeds, feeling overwhelmed by managing all the details. You find yourself tethered to the desk, making every decision, and desperately wishing you could take a vacation without things falling apart. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Whether you are a new leader, an aspiring leader, or an experienced leader who has seen it all, this podcast has you covered. Kristiana Corona is a corporate leader, mom of 3, and certified executive coach. She's spent more than two decades building design and technology teams for Fortune 500 companies. Like so many leaders, she started off with very little training and made every mistake in the book. She felt completely unworthy of the title of “leader.” Along the way, a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed her life and led her to dramatically improve her leadership style and results. Fast forward to today and you’ll see the thriving teams that she has led: confident, resilient, strategic, and empowered. They’re making a real impact on the world. If you’re a leader looking for the tools, the mindset and the inspiration to help you become the leader you’ve always dreamed of - a leader who does feel worthy to lead - this podcast is for you. The Worthy to Lead Podcast is a business podcast that blends insights and interviews to provide you with the tools and mindset you need to develop teams of any size to be empowered and effective. Using techniques from executive coaching and other leadership best practices, you’ll learn to create a “coaching leadership style” that will transform the way you lead forever. Kristiana brings you step-by-step tools, frameworks, and insights into coaching, leadership, neuroscience, behavioral psychology, emotional intelligence, focus, mindset, and so much more. She won’t shy away from sharing personal stories of her own mistakes and challenges (and yes, there have been so many!). She dives deep, shares real talk, and takes the learnings to help guide you on the path to overcoming similar challenges for yourself. Along the way, she’ll interview amazing and inspiring leaders and experts across many industries who share their personal journey to feeling worthy and the strategies that got them there. Each episode is packed with inspiration and practical steps that you can use to start taking action today. Learn the best-kept secrets of coaching as a leadership style and how it can transform your life and unlock new potential in your teams. Join us as we go deep and explore what it takes to build an authentic leadership style that you, and others, are going to love.