The Manager Lab

New research tracking 200 employees at a tech company shows AI often increases workload rather than freeing time. Workers moved faster and took on more tasks, leading to longer hours, blurred boundaries, and more multitasking that caused fatigue and mistakes. Managers should create real norms—intentional pauses, deliberate sequencing of tasks, and human check-ins—to manage the extra capacity AI creates so it doesn’t default into more work and burnout.

This episode summarizes Harvard Business Review research identifying three behaviors that make leaders inspirational: the Visionary (connect work to a meaningful future), the Exemplar (model calm, competent behavior under pressure), and the Mentor (combine support with stretch). It gives practical actions you can use right away: spend 90 seconds on the "why" in meetings, stay deliberately calm in high-stress moments, and in one-on-ones pair specific praise with a stretch challenge. Leadership is a skill—pick one behavior to practice this week and take one concrete action.

This episode explains why charismatic candidates can still become toxic leaders and shares a practical six-step hiring process to expose unsafe leadership before you hire. Learn how to define observable leadership behaviors, use behavioral interview questions, set red flags, probe for patterns, score candidates objectively, and validate findings across sources so you hire for fit, not flash.

This episode breaks down Pamela Meyer’s HBR piece "Five Ways to Wield Influence When You Lack Authority," showing how managers can get results from people who don’t report to them. Listen for five practical moves you can use in your next meeting: spot hidden influencers, use temporary back-channels, time your asks, make genuine connections, and read the room’s pulse.

This episode argues that many so-called "AI layoffs" are actually cost-cutting rebranded as innovation and that true AI transformation requires redesigning work, not merely cutting roles. It lays out a practical playbook: break roles into tasks, identify where AI genuinely improves performance, and redesign processes to combine human judgment with machine strengths — plus essential guardrails like aligning to strategy, preserving accountability, and iterating with regular reviews.