Value-Powered Leadership

Stacey Chillemi

Welcome to The Value-Powered Leadership Podcast, hosted by Stacey Chillemi and featuring David Cohen, global consultant, author, and trusted advisor on ethics, leadership, and organizational culture. This podcast cuts through corporate fluff to explore what truly drives sustainable success: alignment between values, behavior, and leadership. David brings over 30 years of experience helping organizations around the world, including healthcare systems, Fortune 500 companies, startups, and government agencies, uncover and realign their core values. You'll hear: Real-world case studiesContrarian insightsPractical strategiesHow to hire for the perfect fitLeading with authenticityPreservation of company culture during changeConfronting the ethical challenges posed by AI in recruitmentWhether you’re a business leader, HR professional, consultant, or someone navigating a complex workplace culture, this show is your backstage pass to what actually makes or breaks teams, morale, and performance.

Episodes

  1. 6d ago

    Why Your Employees Are Burnt Out — Even When Engagement Is High

    If your team is burnt out, quietly quitting, or emotionally checked out — your engagement score won't tell you why. That's the blind spot this episode is here to fix. Host Lisa Urbanski sits down with organizational consultant and author David Cohen to unpack the difference between employee experience and employee engagement — and why confusing the two is silently damaging your culture, your retention, and your bottom line.  You'll learn: 🔍 Why high engagement scores can mask a deeply broken experience 📋 How surveys are gamed — and what the data is really telling you 🧠 The experience pyramid that drives real loyalty and performance 🤝 Why leadership owns this problem — not HR 🤖 How AI is quietly isolating your workforce ✅ 5 pillars of employee experience you can start using today  📍 Catch David live at SHRM 2026 — Pre-Conference Workshop, Orlando Tuesday, June 16 · 8:00 AM–12:00 PM EDT Register: ⁠https://registration.events.shrm.org/flow/shrm/shrm26/public-catalog/page/catalog/session/1768332959523001Vxhq⁠ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN  🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    37 min
  2. 12/19/2025

    Real Values, Real Results: Company Culture and Values-Based Leadership

    What makes company values real—and why do some organizations thrive while others quietly lose trust, talent, and integrity? Host Lisa Urbanski sits down with David Cohen to break down what authentic company values look like in action, why values must apply to everyone (not just frontline staff), and how “values-based hiring” can dramatically improve retention and workplace culture. In this conversation, David shares powerful examples—such as Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson—showing how living values can strengthen culture, enhance customer experience, and drive long-term business success. In this episode, you’ll learn: ✅ How to tell if values are real vs. performative ✅ The behaviors that reveal culture fast ✅ How to hire for values (without hiring “robots”) ✅ How integrity connects to every value you claim ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN  🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    49 min
  3. 12/05/2025

    Turn 360° Feedback Into Leadership Fuel

    Host Lisa Urbanski sits down with global leadership consultant David Cohen to unpack how 360° feedback can move you from self-doubt and defensiveness into clarity, confidence, and real growth as a leader. If feedback has ever left you feeling confused, exposed, or like an imposter, this episode will show you how to read it differently—and use it to lead better starting now. You’ll learn how to: See 360° feedback as useful data instead of a personal attackUnderstand why your self-view and others’ view often don’t match—and why that’s normalGive honest feedback without shaming, blaming, or burning bridgesUse “feedforward” and future-focused language to drive real behavior changeAlign feedback with values, culture, and the top behaviors that actually matter in your roleRespond to tough comments with courage and curiosity instead of ego and avoidanceThis conversation will help you feel less threatened by feedback and more equipped to turn it into a practical tool for your own leadership transformation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN  🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    47 min
  4. 07/29/2025

    Values Over Resumes: Ethical Leadership That Wins

    If you hire for skills and fire for behavior, this episode shows you how to flip that script...FAST! In this power-packed conversation, host Stacey Chillemi sits down with ethics and culture consultant David Cohen to uncover how companies can actually live their values, not just frame them on the wall, and bring a global perspective to a very common problem: misaligned behavior that derails teams, kills morale, and destroys results.  You’ll hear: Why people are hired for experience, promoted for results, and fired for behavior, plus how to stop the cycle.How to uncover your organization’s covert values (the ones people actually live by).The truth about AI in hiring: built-in biases, lawsuits, and what leaders must test before they trust the tech.Real-world stories showing how leadership shifts can tank culture or revive it.The simple, powerful question to ask during interviews to expose value alignment (or misalignment).David’s message is clear: Authentic leadership and behavioral fit aren’t “nice to haves", they’re your competitive edge. 🔗 Interested in David’s insights? Dive deeper into his work via his website and on LinkedIn. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN  🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

    49 min

About

Welcome to The Value-Powered Leadership Podcast, hosted by Stacey Chillemi and featuring David Cohen, global consultant, author, and trusted advisor on ethics, leadership, and organizational culture. This podcast cuts through corporate fluff to explore what truly drives sustainable success: alignment between values, behavior, and leadership. David brings over 30 years of experience helping organizations around the world, including healthcare systems, Fortune 500 companies, startups, and government agencies, uncover and realign their core values. You'll hear: Real-world case studiesContrarian insightsPractical strategiesHow to hire for the perfect fitLeading with authenticityPreservation of company culture during changeConfronting the ethical challenges posed by AI in recruitmentWhether you’re a business leader, HR professional, consultant, or someone navigating a complex workplace culture, this show is your backstage pass to what actually makes or breaks teams, morale, and performance.