After spending most of her life denying she had feelings, Christy Pretzinger built a business based largely on helping others develop them. Now CEO of WG Content and founder of The Better Leader Project, she's on a mission to help Gen Z develop the human skills that will make them irreplaceable in an AI-driven world—while creating workplaces where Sunday scaries become extinct.

In this conversation, Christy reveals a crucial insight: while AI might excel at tasks, our survival depends on our humanity—except we're terrible at being human. We struggle with vulnerability, curiosity, and empathy—the very skills that make us irreplaceable. This paradox sits at the heart of the workplace crisis facing younger generations who crave authenticity but lack the tools to practice it professionally.

Christy shares her observations about Gen Z's relationship with work: they want genuine connection, refuse to leave their emotions at home, and are opting out of traditional management roles after watching their elders get "chewed up and spit out." But notably, they're not opting out of leadership—they just can't reconcile being themselves with the management models they've witnessed.

The conversation takes a personal turn when Christy discusses her COVID-era leadership challenges, including having to lay off a third of her company while navigating her own tendency to err too far on the empathy side. Her vulnerability about not being able to do any of the jobs in her company anymore, despite having done them all, offers a refreshing take on what authentic leadership really looks like.

We explore practical approaches to bringing appropriate emotion into professional settings, the difference between kindness and weakness, and why the leader's primary job is to remove barriers to their team's success. Christy's framework for helping people practice their humanity in small cohorts offers a tangible path forward for organizations struggling to bridge generational divides while maintaining professional standards.

For anyone wondering how to create environments where people can be both human and high-performing, or leaders trying to model authenticity without sacrificing effectiveness, this conversation provides both philosophical grounding and practical guidance.

• Your Cultural Balance Sheet by Christy Pretzinger
• The Better Leader Project - Movement to help Gen Z develop human skills for work
• ChristyPretzinger.com
• LinkedIn
• WGContent.com

After failing to become a professional basketball player in Australia, Chris March took a leap that would define the next 16 years of his life—and his entire leadership philosophy. What started as a rite of passage trip to London became a career spanning three continents, multiple industries, and a deep understanding of what middle managers really need to thrive in "the squeeze."

In this conversation, Chris shares his journey from Sydney to London to Vancouver to Toronto and finally back home, revealing how each bold move taught him that growth comes from putting yourself in slightly uncomfortable positions. Now an executive coach working with middle managers and seven- to nine-figure founders through The Entourage, Chris brings a unique perspective on navigating the challenging space between frontline work and senior leadership.

We explore the reality of being a middle manager—carrying the organization's vision and culture while managing up, down, and sideways with limited resources and often conflicting priorities. Chris introduces the concept of "the squeeze," where middle managers bear the weight of organizational expectations while trying to maintain their own sanity and career progression. His advice? Ask for feedback early and often, turning what most people fear into a powerful tool for growth and team building.

Chris shares his daily self-coaching routine using AI, including powerful reflection questions like "What will make today great?" and "What outcome today moved you closer to your overall goal?" He demonstrates how modern tools can democratize access to coaching insights, making professional development accessible even without a formal coach.

We also discuss why fear-based leadership is not just outdated but fundamentally counterproductive. Chris's message to middle managers is clear: You're doing important work, and with the right mindset and tools, you can navigate the squeeze while building toward your next career chapter.

Chris March on LinkedIn

chrismarchcoaching.com

The Entourage

Something fundamental is broken in how we approach leadership when only 19% of employees trust their company's leadership and engagement hovers around 20-30%. Sébastien Page, Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price and author of The Psychology of Leadership, brings 25 years of money management experience and deep psychological research to explain why our narrow focus on goal achievement might actually be killing both performance and engagement.

Drawing from sports psychology, Sébastien introduces the critical distinction between ego mindset (focused on KPIs, rankings, and external validation) and mastery mindset (focused on improvement for its own sake). While organizations chase sales targets and quarterly metrics, they miss what actually drives engagement: the excitement of getting better at how we do things, whether that's improving research processes or simply running better meetings.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when Sébastien shares his personal encounter with goal-induced blindness. His own near-death experience serves as a stark warning about what happens when we pursue goals at any cost. He shares the example that Everest climbers have a 4% chance of dying—a statistic that should make us question our own "summit or die" mentality in business.

We dive deep into the lessons in Sébastien’s book, including why leaders need to master being disagreeable about 10% of the time—picking battles that matter while avoiding both excessive agreeableness and tyrannical behavior. His "10% rule" offers a practical framework for leaders struggling to balance consensus-building with decisive action.

Sébastien and I discuss personality traits that predict leadership success, particularly openness to experience—using an interesting spectrum of Jim Morrison (maximum openness) to the Pope (maximum tradition). The key insight: effective leaders need both the innovation that comes from openness and the discipline that comes from structure.

Throughout, Sébastien challenges conventional wisdom, arguing that our KPI obsession creates ego-driven cultures where people optimize for metrics rather than mastery. His research-backed approach offers a path forward for leaders who want to build organizations where people are genuinely engaged, not just hitting numbers.

• The Psychology of Leadership by Sébastien Page
• NSFW - A good manager’s guide to better feeling work in a toxic culture by me
• Sébastien Page - business profile on LinkedIn
• Sébastien’s Instagram for his book