The Kestryl Edge

Daniel Korus
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Management

Most leaders weren't trained to lead. They were promoted because they were good at the technical work, then handed a team and told to figure it out. The Kestryl Edge is a conversation series about what actually builds trust, accountability, and retention on high-performing teams, especially in industries where the stakes are real. Host Dan Korus talks with practitioners, researchers, and operators who've done the work, not theorized about it from a distance. Expect grounded research, real experiences, little corporate jargon, and conversations that respect your time. If you're a leader trying to build a team people actually trust, this is for you. New episodes regularly.

  1. 5d ago

    The Negative Space Is The Work w/ Kathi Dalguntas | E13

    Kathi Dalguntas spent a year as a fractional chief of staff, got offered too little for work nobody could measure, and quit in a way that was not at all planned. Now she runs Not Rising, a decentralized journalism magazine built to avoid the single biggest trap in media: capture. We go deep on the negative space of leadership, the work that keeps an organization alive without ever showing up as a line item. She explains why companies become living systems, not org charts, and why the C-suite's biggest job is getting over itself. Along the way: the principal who warned her parents journalism was dangerous, her Walter Mitty moment, the case for role modeling your own mistakes, and exactly where to find a Garrett. You can find Kathi on Substack as Chief Absurdist Officer, and the magazine at Not Rising. Music licensed through Soundstripe. License code: 2VMU9UUTJZQYMPII and XDUDLKBQBNSXYIMR.

  2. Sep 7

    Ditch The Frameworks. Ask: "Who Am I Talking to To?" w/ Jennifer Houle | E12

    Jennifer Houle Crosswinds Interview Jen's Substack Uncompliant Read and listen to more at www.dankorus.com Most emotional intelligence training hands out a framework and calls it done. Jennifer Houle, HR leader and Substack writer, argues the opposite: there's no script, no personality quiz, no four-box model that works until you actually know who's in front of you. In this episode, Dan Korus and Jennifer dig into what real emotional intelligence looks like inside a company: how middle managers get systemically set up to fail, why terminations need aftercare the same way any hard conversation does, and why the DISC/Enneagram-style personality frameworks so many workplaces lean on often do more harm than good. Jennifer draws on her path from Wendy's at 14, to running her own yoga studio, to two decades in HR, to make the case that leadership effectiveness isn't a template you apply, it's a practice of paying attention. Along the way: imposter syndrome and whether leaders actually want to know if people like them, the cult-like patterns inside toxic startups, how to give feedback without hollowing it out into nothing, and why "just be data-driven" doesn't fix a broken culture. If you lead people, manage people, or fire people for a living, this one's for you. #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ #Leadership #HR #WorkplaceCulture #MiddleManagement #ImposterSyndrome #LeadershipDevelopment #PeopleManagement #HRLeadership #AuthenticLeadership #LeadershipPodcast #KestrylSessions #EmployeeExperience #ToxicWorkplace References and resources available upon request :) Music licensed through Soundstripe. Codes: GVOMCKA9E1M5HQPZ, 9RWMGDPWVTQGBODM

  3. Aug 31

    Why Your Next CEO Should Come From HR w/ Mark Putrus | E11

    Masks at work and the Case for CPOs in the Corner Office (with Mark Putrus) Mark Putrus has spent his career moving through the full HR arc, from pharma sales rep to sales trainer to Chief People Officer, and he's not shy about calling out what he calls "1980s HR" along the way. In this conversation, Mark opens up about something rarely discussed on leadership podcasts: the exhausting work of wearing a mask at work, drawn from his own experience navigating the workplace as part of the LGBTQ+ community and as one half of a two-dad family. From there, the conversation moves into what it actually takes to build a workplace where people can show up without armor. We also dig into why HR should be treated like any other revenue-driving function instead of a cost center, Mark's build-buy-borrow framework for talent strategy, his case for why Chief People Officers are increasingly strong candidates for the CEO seat, and his sharp, contrarian take on the "AI is going to collapse the workforce" narrative dominating headlines right now. Mark closes with his philosophy on leading with clarity, the platinum rule versus the golden rule, and concrete advice for new hires, middle managers, and the C-suite alike. In this episode: What it costs to wear a mask at work, and how to build a workplace that needs less of itWhy HR should be run like marketing or sales, not treated as a cost centerBuild, buy, or borrow: a practical framework for closing talent gapsThe case for Chief People Officers as future CEOsWhy Mark is skeptical of "doom and gloom" predictions about AI and the workforceLeading with clarity, and why uncertainty is one of the worst ways to run a teamAdvice for first-day employees, middle managers, and senior executives Connect with Mark: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markputrus/ Substack (The Unspoken): https://substack.com/@markputrus Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: PG2X0R93HSCP2RAD, 3BPA9ZH19X92BQXY

  4. Aug 25

    Living Human Documents w/ Matt Heyn: A Chaplain on Presence, Compassion, and Marketing | E10

    Matt Heyn spent over two decades as a hospital chaplain and in ministry before he ever touched a marketing campaign. On this episode of Kestryl Sessions, he explains why the two jobs are more alike than anyone expects. Host Dan Korus talks with Matt Heyn (Strategy Signal, VyB Marketing) about what a century of chaplaincy training can teach leaders and marketers about emotional intelligence. Matt breaks down the "verbatim," a clinical pastoral education tool chaplains use to reflect on high-stakes conversations, and the layered model of presence (geographical, psychological, affective) that separates leaders people follow from leaders people merely obey. The conversation covers the real difference between sympathy, empathy, and compassion in a management context, why "living human documents" is a better mental model for reading people than trying to extract information from them, and concrete advice for building trust in a new role, team, or leadership seat. In this episode: What a hospital chaplaincy verbatim is and how to run one on yourselfThe three (or five) layers of presence, and why most leadership advice only covers the first oneSympathy vs. empathy vs. compassion: picking the right tool for the momentWhy the jump from individual contributor to manager is a relational shift, not a skills shiftPractical advice for people starting, mid-career, and at the top of their leadership pathFind Matt Heyn on Substack at Strategy Signal. Lead with the best at www.kestryledge.com.

  5. Aug 18

    Leaders: Are You A Shit Umbrella or a Shit Funnel? Tanu Tiwari | E9

    Tanu Tiwari: Why Your Team's Disengagement Is a Leadership Design Problem Global employee engagement just hit its lowest point since 2020, the first two consecutive years of decline ever recorded. Manager engagement collapsed from 31% to 22% since 2022. Ten trillion dollars in lost productivity. No region on earth saw an increase. Tanu Tiwari spent 18 years inside global tech and Fortune 500 companies in marketing, data analytics, and leadership. She's now an ICF certified leadership coach, founder of The Conscious Leader Company, and author of the forthcoming book Disengaged: Turning Passive Teams into Proactive Microcultures. In this conversation, Tanu breaks down: Why every leader is building a "microculture" whether they realize it or not, and the nine conditions in her PROACTIVE framework that determine whether it's healthyThe difference between a "shit umbrella" leader and a "shit funnel" leader, with real examples of what each looks like in a Tuesday afternoon meetingWhy she thinks most "AI layoffs" are companies using AI as cover for business models that were already failingThe three things people need from a leader to stay engaged: to feel seen, significant, and safeHer own story of working through labor and flying to a trade show five months postpartum, and what it taught her about identity and burnoutTanu also built a free AI tool that scores your team's culture stack against her nine conditions. Connect with Tanu: Substack, Invisible Lessons: https://invisiblelessons.substack.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bytanutiwari/ Instagram/TikTok: @theconsciousleaderco Website: theconsciousleaderco.com Referenced in this episode: Simon Sinek's conversation with Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, on A Bit of Optimism — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6766oydXpw

  6. Aug 10

    Anger is a Beautiful Emotion, What a Therapist Taught Me About Leadership : Richard Reynolds | E8

    Rich Reynolds is a licensed marriage and family therapist turned leadership coach, and he opens with a claim that reframes the whole episode: the reason a leader struggles in a boardroom is the same reason a husband struggles in a marriage or an addict struggles to quit. Same emotional wiring, different room. We get into his "stage one, stage two" model of development (the adaptive strategies that get you through childhood eventually become the ceiling on your leadership), what real versus performative empathy actually feels like in the body, and why most boundary-setting advice fails because it's all script and no nervous system. Then I bring him a live case: less than 24 hours after teaching a workshop module on performative empathy, my own 360 review came back with a comment saying I do exactly that. Rich coaches me through it in real time, including a moment where I get visibly heated talking about a peer manager who lied to my face. We use it to walk through what healthy anger actually looks like at work, as opposed to the two failure modes most of us default to: blowing up or going silent. Also covered: managing up, advice for first-day employees vs. middle managers vs. C-suite, and why Kaladin from The Stormlight Archive is a near-perfect case study in leadership burnout. Find Rich at his newsletter, The Self Reflective Leader, on Substack.

  7. Aug 3

    The People Who Care the Most Burn Out the Fastest: Ashley Gibson | E7

    Ashley Gibson spent over a decade running marketing for touring Broadway shows (Hamilton included, back before anyone knew what they had) while quietly burning out the whole time. Then she went back to school, became a trauma therapist, and realized she was diagnosing the exact same thing in her clients that she'd already lived through at the VP level. Now she's building a framework for treating burnout as a relational systems problem instead of a personal one. We get into a lot: co-regulation and why your nervous system reads a room before your brain catches up, why "authenticity" has become a hall pass for people to just be assholes at work, what a 94-year-old existential psychiatrist has to do with leadership training, and where AI is actually useful for pattern recognition versus where it just feeds the loop you're already stuck in. Also covered: why you should skip every meeting without an agenda, what to actually do on your first day at a new job, and the time a bathroom flooded directly onto Ashley's desk mid-career. It's a real story. It comes up. Find Ashley's free Intent-Impact Diagnostic and her upcoming white paper at meaninginpractice.com, and follow her on Substack. https://ashleycgibson.substack.com/ #Burnout #EmotionalIntelligence #Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #MentalHealthAtWork #EQ #TraumaInformed #OrganizationalPsychology #LeadershipDevelopment #Coregulation

  8. Jul 28

    You Can't Help Anyone If Your Cup Is Empty: Annabelle Botea | E6

    Annabelle's Substack - https://annabellebotea.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips She was advising Parliament and working UN global health policy. Then burnout made her stop and rebuild from scratch. Annabelle Botea studied political science and law at Sciences Po, advised in the Romanian Parliament, and worked global health policy for an NGO at the UN level. On paper, it looked perfect. Underneath it, she was running on four coffees a day and popping medicine like candy just to keep going. Then burnout forced the stop she couldn’t give herself. In this conversation, Dan and Annabelle get into: The exact moment burnout stopped being abstract and became physicalWhy she treats intuition and emotional intelligence as a competitive advantage, not a soft skill“Brenda”: the name she gave her inner critic, and how she sends her for a walkWhy she doesn’t allow “party poopers” in her Substack comments, and the boundary behind that ruleBuilding Pitaya and rejecting the “10k a month in three months” myth of online businessWhat she wants to give future employees that she never had: emotional safety Annabelle now writes Outside the System on Substack and is building Pitaya, helping first-time founders simplify selling digital products and services online. Outside the System - https://annabellebotea.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips If you’ve ever mistaken burnout for a personality trait, this one’s for you.

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About

Most leaders weren't trained to lead. They were promoted because they were good at the technical work, then handed a team and told to figure it out. The Kestryl Edge is a conversation series about what actually builds trust, accountability, and retention on high-performing teams, especially in industries where the stakes are real. Host Dan Korus talks with practitioners, researchers, and operators who've done the work, not theorized about it from a distance. Expect grounded research, real experiences, little corporate jargon, and conversations that respect your time. If you're a leader trying to build a team people actually trust, this is for you. New episodes regularly.

Information

  • Creator
    Daniel Korus
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Daniel Korus

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