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Partnering Leadership

Partnering Leadership

Hosted by Mahan Tavakoli

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Episodes

469

Latest episode

Aug 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

Partnering Leadership is a top global podcast designed to help CEOs and senior leaders navigate the complexities of leadership, strategy, culture, and innovation. Hosted by Mahan Tavakoli—a seasoned leadership advisor with over 25 years of experience and recognized as a top thought leader in management—the podcast brings you real-world insights and practical advice to drive meaningful results. Mahan’s experience as a trusted advisor shapes each discussion, driving deeper insights that challenge conventional thinking and uncover innovative approaches. Drawing from his extensive advisory background, Mahan dives into candid conversations with purpose-driven CEOs and global thought leaders, exploring how they overcame their biggest challenges and achieved transformative success. Each episode provides actionable strategies, real-world examples, and proven approaches to help you navigate change, align teams, and drive lasting impact. Hear directly from top experts such as Ram Charan, Ken Blanchard, John Kotter, Stephen M.R. Covey, Hal Elrod, Carmine Gallo, Daniel Burrus, Garry Ridge, Jacob Morgan, Emily Field, Jonah Berger, Barbara Kellerman, Rich Diviney, Andrea Sampson, Ajay Agrawal, Dave Ulrich, Jerry Colonna, Renee Cummings, Brian Johnson, Warren Berger, Gustavo Razzetti, Azeem Azhar, David McRaney, Tim Clark, Jim Detert, Gary Bolles, Greg Satell, Robert Wolcott, Alden Mills, Minter Dial, Greg Wooldridge, Pete Steinberg, Joseph Fuller, Paul Roetzer, Whitney Johnson, Ron Adner, Bob Johansen, Leidy Klotz, Paul Smith, Louis Rosenberg, Rob Sadow, Dan Turchin, Steve Robinson, Park Howell, Mark Crowley, Maz Jobrani, LaTonya Wilkins, Rob Cross, Aiden McCullen, Eduardo Briceno, Jan Rutherford, Stephen Wunker, Charlene Li, Jon Levy, Anu Gupta, John Rossman, David Marquet, Tamsen Webster, Jack Phillips, Vanessa Bohns, Patrick McGinnis, Hakeem Oluseyi, Ed Hess, and Carolyn Dewar as well as renowned leaders like David Rubenstein, Jean Case, Tony Pierce, Linda Rabbitt, Paul Daugherty, Richard Bynum, John Veihmeyer, Howard Ross, Bill Novelli, Tien Wong, Stephanie Linnartz, Chuck Robb, Doug Dennerline, Charlene Drew Jarvis, Robert Rosenberg, Diane Hoskins, Deidre Paknad, David Gardner, and Marty Rodgers, and many more! Their insights, paired with Mahan's expertise, equip you to tackle complex challenges, foster a high-performance culture, and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving world. Listen today to gain the tools, perspectives, and proven strategies that can transform your leadership journey. Available on all major podcast platforms or visit https://partneringleadership.com.

Listen to episodes

60 recent
September 3, 202646 min

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

September 1, 202642 min

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

August 25, 202650 min

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

August 18, 20261 hr 16 min

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

August 11, 20261 hr 7 min

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

August 6, 202644 min

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

August 4, 202644 min

464 [Leadership Reset] Turn the Ship Around: Creating Leaders Instead of Followers with L. David Marquet

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

July 28, 202631 min

463 [Leadership Reset] Leading Through Uncertainty: How CEOs Make Better Decisions When Everything Is Changing with Ram Charan

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

July 21, 202646 min

462 [Leadership Reset] Why Successful Organizations Struggle to Change with Marcus East

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

July 14, 202655 min

461 [Leadership Reset] How AI Is Reshaping Value Creation and Competitive Advantage with Sangeet Paul Choudary

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

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