The Hard Skills

Hosted by Dr. Mira Brancu

BusinessInterviews guests

Episodes

Language

EN-US

About the show

Welcome to “The Hard Skills” podcast, a practical and research-driven show that explores the core leadership skills needed to fuel leadership to activate real change, such as creating inclusive and healthy workplaces. Through expert interviews and live coaching calls, we challenge the notion of "soft skills," question long-held but inaccurate leadership development beliefs, and offer real, practical solutions for complex leadership challenges. Hosted by Dr. Mira Brancu, a clinical and organizational development psychologist with extensive leadership experience, we’ll delve into topics of leadership identity, leading with uncertainty, navigating workplace politics, and creating critical organizational change. This podcast will especially appeal to high-achieving leaders in healthcare, tech, and academic, industries. Whether you're seeking personal growth, looking to enhance your leadership abilities, or interested in Dr. Brancu's coaching services and membership community, join us as we unravel the complexities of leadership and inspire you to embrace the hard skills.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

1 hr 1 min

Your Generation Explains Only 4% of Your Personality, with Dr. Ryne Sherman

Everyone says you have to manage each generation differently. The data says otherwise. Your generation explains about 4 percent of your personality. You explain almost 80 percent. Dr. Mira Brancu sits down with Dr. Ryne Sherman, Chief Science Officer at Hogan Assessments, to take apart one of the most repeated ideas in leadership: that Gen Z, Millennials, and Boomers are fundamentally different people who need to be managed in fundamentally different ways. Ryne brought the data: Once you statistically separate age, time period, and birth cohort, generation accounts for roughly 4 percent of the variability on a personality assessment. Age accounts for 12 to 15 percent. The individual person accounts for nearly 80 percent. They get into why our brains build these shortcuts in the first place, what genuinely does change as people get older, why agreeableness drops off after retirement, and what it really costs you when you make hiring and promotion calls based on someone's birth year or generation. Ryne also shares the five human skills he thinks will matter most as AI takes over more of the work. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, workplace psychology, and what actually makes teams work. Find our guest here: Connect with Dr. Ryne Sherman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rynesherman/ Hogan Assessments: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hogan-assessments Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

7 min

How to Manage High Performers

Managing high performers takes a completely different skill set than managing low performers, and giving feedback to a high achiever the usual way can backfire badly. There is probably someone on your team who used to be your strongest player and lately something is off. They are missing deadlines, questioning everything, or moving so fast they are rubbing the team the wrong way. And you keep putting the conversation off, because how do you tell someone they are amazing and they are not meeting your expectations at the same time? Dr. Mira Brancu breaks down why most supervisors freeze here, why "just be direct" is incomplete advice when you are dealing with talented people, and what to say instead. You will learn the “wise” feedback method, a research-backed way to frame the conversation so it lands as investment rather than punishment. You will also learn how to reframe leadership itself as a second specialty your high performer has to master, and why that single shift makes frequent check-ins feel like support instead of micromanaging. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and the human side of high pressure work. To find more of my work: Subscribe to this channel Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

8 min

From Expert to Leader: Being Right vs Being Effective

You were right in that meeting and nobody listened. Dr. Mira Brancu breaks down what technical experts miss when they ignore workplace politics in favor of being right. Most technical experts get promoted because they were brilliant at the work. They spotted the flaw nobody else saw, they said it out loud, and people respected them for it. Then they step into leadership and that same directness starts landing as criticism and nitpicking. The usual fix is to gain political savvy, build executive presence, get better at diplomacy. To a lot of functional experts-turned-leaders that sounds like being told to be fake, so they shut down and ignore it completely. Mira takes a different route. She walks through why the political side of the job is not noise getting in the way of real work, it is the majority of the work now. Then she gives you a 30 minute environmental scan you can run before any high stakes meeting, so you stop leading with your conclusion and start leading with what you actually understand about the other person's concern. This is part two of her series on what happens when strong individual contributors move into leadership roles. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, workplace politics, and the human side of high pressure organizations. To find more of my work: Subscribe to this channel Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

47 min

The One Thing AI Can't Fix for Leaders, with Drs. Ross Blankenship & Maggie Sass

Most leaders are told to stay logical and remove anything that feels like friction. But real emotional intelligence in leadership starts with reading that friction, not erasing it. Dr. Mira Brancu sits down with organizational psychologists Dr. Ross Blankenship and Dr. Maggie Sass, authors of the upcoming book Friction, to talk about the emotional data most of us are trained to ignore. They make a simple case: friction is not a malfunction, it is a signal. The discomfort, the tension, the hard conversation you keep avoiding, all of it is information you can actually use to lead better. They get into why using AI to smooth everything out can quietly make your work vanish instead of easier and why leadership only becomes real the moment your decisions meet other human beings. If you have ever felt that leading people is harder than it looks, this conversation explains what is actually going on, and what to do about it this week. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and mental health at work. Find our guest here: https://www.tuesdayadvisors.com/ https://rossblankenship.substack.com/ https://www.rossblankenship.io/ https://www.talentsmarteq.com/articles/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiesass-phd/ To find more of my work: 👉 Subscribe to this channel 📰 Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe 📆 Schedule a call to explore working with me: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation 📕 Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Other resources referenced: A Second Career: The Possible Dream, Harry Levinson: https://hbr.org/1983/05/a-second-career-the-possible-dream

7 min

How Experts Become Micromanagers

You did not set out to become a micromanager. But if you got promoted for being the best expert in the room, perfectionism is probably running your leadership now, and it might be quietly burning you out or causing you to become ineffective as a leader. Dr. Mira Brancu breaks down a pattern she sees constantly in expert-driven industries like research, law, medicine, and engineering. In those fields, being right and thorough is the entire job, so you learn to hold everything to one standard and never let anything drop. Then you get promoted, and that exact habit starts choking your team. She tells the story of a VP at a biotech company who reviewed every deck, and then every revision of every deck, until her team started padding timelines just to work around her. Everyone could see she was stressed except her. Here is the part most leadership advice gets wrong. Telling a high performer to let go of perfectionism does not work, because perfectionism is the thing that built their credibility in the first place. Mira explains what to do instead, and why the real fix is treating leadership as a second specialization you have to learn on purpose. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and the human side of high pressure work. To find more of my work: Subscribe to this channel Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

56 min

How Great Leaders Master the Inner Game and Outer Game, with Jamie Ramsden and Dr. Suzie Burke

Even Einstein doubted himself. Meryl Streep still waits for the other shoe to drop. Dr. Mira sits down with executive advisors Dr. Suzy Burke and Jamie Ramsden to explore what they call the inner game and outer game of leadership. Suzy explains why self-doubt is actually an evolutionary response, not a personal flaw, and walks through a simple three-step process for catching negative self-talk before it derails a decision. Jamie brings in the outer game, the part of leadership that is about reading your team, your context, and the moment in front of you. Together they explain why a leader's inner dialogue becomes the whole team's emotional weather, how sense-making should take up more of a leader's day than most people realize, and why saying no might be the most underused leadership skill there is. If you have ever felt like a fraud in a room you worked hard to get into, or wondered why your inner work isn’t landing, this conversation will change how you think about that feeling. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership and emotional intelligence. Find our guest here: Connect with Dr. Suzy Burke and Jamie Ramsden www.suzyburke.phd www.adastraleadership.com To find more of my work: Subscribe to this channel Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

48 min

A Unique Way This Psychologist Helps Leaders Reduce Burnout in 52 Weeks, with Dr. Dana Gionta

Most leaders were taught that self-love is soft, or even selfish. It is actually the skill that keeps you from burning out. Self-love is the real foundation of sustainable leadership. In this episode of The Hard Skills, Dr. Mira Brancu sits down with psychologist and life coach Dr. Dana Gionta, author of "52 Weeks to Self-Love." They get into what self-love actually means for someone in a high-pressure leadership role, and why it has nothing to do with being self-centered. Dr. Dana shares the health scare and the two-month sabbatical that forced her to change course, and how fear turned out to be the first step toward courage every single time. You will also hear why so many high achievers only stop when a health crisis stops them, how to spot the early warning signs in your own self-talk, and the simple shift from gap thinking to gain thinking that changes how you lead your team. If you have ever felt like people are walking on eggshells around you, this one is worth your time. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and mental health. Find our guest here: Connect with Dr. Dana Gionta www.danagionta.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/danagiontaphd/ @danagiontacoaching https://www.facebook.com/DanaGiontaCoaching/ https://lnkd.in/giKvuDqc (book link) To find more of my work: Subscribe to this channel Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

34 min

Stress, Burnout, Disengagement, vs. a Toxic Environment, with Dr. John O'Brien

Most leaders spot rudeness or a toxic workplace and rush to shut the behavior down. But incivility is often a symptom of stress, burnout, and something deeper nobody names. Dr. Mira Brancu sat down as a guest on Dr. John O'Brien's show, Civility Matters, and this is the full conversation. They get into why punishing rude behavior usually backfires, and how to tell the difference between the symptom you can see and the root cause you cannot. Mira breaks down organizational grief, the quiet loss people carry after layoffs and reorgs that shows up as disengagement, quiet quitting, and cynicism instead of tears. You will also hear her simple two by two office politics matrix that reveals whether your influence at work has turned self-serving, whether ambition and civility can actually coexist, and real advice for anyone stuck in a toxic job right now. The point they both keep coming back to is this: Leaders have to deal with their own stress first, because you cannot steady anyone else while you are running on empty. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and workplace mental health. Connect with Dr. John O’Brien : www.activatesuccess.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmobrienphd/ Host: Civility Matters Podcast: https://civilitymatters.buzzsprout.com Rudeness Rehab Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1957651911?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RudenessRehab Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship

1 hr 31 min

The 13 Human Needs Your Workplace Forgot

The modern workplace got great at performance and quietly stopped meeting basic human needs at work. This is a full season on those needs, and the leadership that brings them back. Dr. Mira Brancu closes out Season 11 of The Hard Skills by walking through 13 human needs organizations have learned to ignore. Across eleven guests and two solo episodes, each need comes with a short, powerful clip and a practical way to rebuild it on your team. You will hear why self-deprecating humor makes leaders more human, why 85% of what makes a great boss has nothing to do with intelligence, and what a meaningful life actually asks of you. If you lead people, or you feel like something at work has quietly gone missing, this one is for you. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and workplace mental health. Dr. Daniel Cruz Lattimore: https://www.instagram.com/omiyoconsultingllc https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellattimore/ Dr. Paul Damiano: www.creategoodworks.com www.linkedin.com/in/pauldamiano Ira Chaleff: www.irachaleffauthor.com Valerie Zolezzi-Wyndham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriezolezziwyndham https://promotinggoodllc.com/ Dr. Mehul Mankad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmankad/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psychiatry-and-law-podcast/id1352806975 https://www.novumhealth.com/ Dra. CarolLaine Garcia: https://www.drcarollainemgarcia.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcarollainemgarcia https://www.instagram.com/drcarollainemgarcia Duygu Alptekin Gursu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duygualptekingursu https://www.instagram.com/duygualptekingursu/ Candice Schutter: https://thedeeperpulse.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/candiceschutter/ https://www.facebook.com/candice.schutter https://www.instagram.com/candiceschutter/ Margaret Andrews: https://www.margaretandrews.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretcandrews/ Dr. David W. Robinson-Morris: www.reimaginelution.com www.centerforthehumanspirit.org www.drmphd.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrm/ Dr. Mark L. Vincent: https://www.youtube.com/@MARKLVINCENT www.marklvincent.com www.maestrolevelleaders.com To find more of my work: Subscribe to this channel Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Get my free Strategic Clarity and Leadership Resilience assessment: https://mailchi.mp/e1ebf8505764/slr-assessment Get my Free Burnout Root Cause Assessment: https://mailchi.mp/29d7d18fae4a/burnout-root-cause-assessment Get my Workplace Grief Guide: https://mailchi.mp/46873b910380/workplace-grief-field-guide Find other free resources to support your leadership growth: https://gotowerscope.com/other-free-stuff Join the next Towerscope leadership workshop or fellowship: https://gotowerscope.com/fellowship Episodes and other resources referenced: Watch this next: #thehardskills #mirabrancu #selfawareness #leadershipdevelopment #emotionalintelligence #executivecoaching

59 min

The Succession Trap: Handoffs, Legacy, and Your 2,000 Weeks Left, with Dr. Mark L. Vincent

Most leaders think succession is just naming the next person for the chair. It is not. Real leadership succession is about protecting everything you spent years building. Dr. Mira Brancu sits down with Dr. Mark L. Vincent, author of The Maestro Effect, to close out the season on rediscovering human needs at work. They get into why handing off a company is so much harder than picking a name, and why the value you built can quietly leak away if you treat the transition like a finish line. Mark breaks down the two traps most leaders fall into. There is the one where you check out early and reach for the golden parachute, and the one where you cannot let go and slowly choke the life out of the team. He walks through his Maestro theory, the three turns of a leader's life, and the four key elements that actually make or break a succession plan. Near the end the conversation turns personal, and that is the part that stays with you. If you lead anything now, or you will one day, this one is worth your time. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, mental health, and the human side of work. IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE, CAN I ASK A FAVOR? We do not receive any funding or sponsorship for this podcast. If you learned something and feel others could also benefit, please leave a positive review. Every review helps amplify our work and visibility. This is especially helpful for small women-owned boot-strapped businesses. Simply go to the bottom of the Apple Podcast page to enter a review. Thank you! Connect with our guest: https://www.youtube.com/@MARKLVINCENT www.marklvincent.com www.maestrolevelleaders.com Connect wth me: Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe Work with me one-on-one: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Add this podcast to your feed: www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-hard-skills-dr-mira-brancu-m0QzwsFiBGE/