Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

Latest Episodes:

Sparks: Five Trends Shaping the Future of Work and How Organizations Should Prepare for Them Jul 04, 2025

Show notes

The real game of the future of work is how to unstuck yourself from the past. As the workplace keeps changing, new expectations are reshaping what it means to work, manage, and lead. But instead of preparing, many organizations are just reacting to challenges, caught off guard by the shifts they should've seen coming. So what's behind this disruption? In today's Leadership Spark, we break down the five trends driving the future of work: new behaviors, technology, the rise of millennials, mobility, and globalization. These fundamental shifts are already changing how we attract talent, design jobs, and build cultures. If you're still leading with a 20th-century playbook in a 21st-century world, it's time to upgrade. Explore the trends, the real stories behind them, and what you need to do right now to stay ahead in this episode.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

AI without purpose doesn't serve people. It's why many companies have tried, and few have succeeded.

Workhuman is one of them. With the groundbreaking release of Human Intelligence, Workhuman combines AI with real recognition data to help leaders do right by their people, and their organization.

It's how you spot burnout before it leads to turnover. Or discover hidden strengths before they're overlooked. It's how you build a culture that's not only productive—but sustainable. That's what future-ready leadership looks like.

Learn more at Workhuman.com and see how Human Intelligence is helping the most forward-thinking companies lead with insight, empathy, and impact.

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

The Shocking Truth Behind Empty Shelves and a Broken Global Trade System Jun 30, 2025

Show notes

We've built a world where products appear with a click and groceries restock like clockwork...until they don't. When the pandemic hit, it wasn't just shelves that went empty, it was our illusions of a stable, efficient global supply chain that collapsed. And it wasn't a freak accident, it was decades in the making. In this episode, we sit down with Peter Goodman, Global Economic Correspondent for The New York Times and bestselling author of How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain. Peter brings a deep, behind-the-scenes look at how global trade works, and what happens when it doesn't. We unpack the hidden risks and questionable logic behind decades of offshoring, our blind devotion to just-in-time inventory, and a relentless pursuit of shareholder maximization at the expense of resilience.

Peter covers the untold story behind what went wrong during the pandemic and why it could happen again, why we became too dependent on China, and how consulting firms and shareholder obsession made things worse. We also dive into how AI could help (or hurt) global logistics, why nationalistic trade policies could hurt your business more than you think, and what the future of trade and sourcing looks like in a more unstable world.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

AI without purpose doesn't serve people. It's why many companies have tried, and few have succeeded.

Workhuman is one of them. With the groundbreaking release of Human Intelligence, Workhuman combines AI with real recognition data to help leaders do right by their people, and their organization.

Learn more at Workhuman.com and see how Human Intelligence is helping the most forward-thinking companies lead with insight, empathy, and impact.

________________

Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Sparks: Recognition Matters: How Small Gestures Can Mean a Lot for Company Culture Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

What does real employee recognition look like, and why do so many leaders still get it wrong? In today's Leadership Spark, I explore how one emotional moment completely changed a leader's definition of what it means to acknowledge and value your people. We talk about the silent cost of unspoken appreciation, why recognition should never be a top-down policy, and how small, authentic gestures can create lasting cultural change. If you think saying "thank you" is optional, you'll change your mind after hearing this episode.

________________

This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

AI without purpose doesn't serve people. It's why many companies have tried, and few have succeeded.

Workhuman is one of them. With the groundbreaking release of Human Intelligence, Workhuman combines AI with real recognition data to help leaders do right by their people, and their organization.

Learn more at Workhuman.com and see how Human Intelligence is helping the most forward-thinking companies lead with insight, empathy, and impact.

________________

Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

How Kettering University Prepares Students for AI, Tech & Jobs of Tomorrow Jun 23, 2025

Show notes

Is college still worth it? As tuition rises and dropout rates soar, the big question everyone's asking is: how do we prepare young people for a future we can't predict? In this episode, Dr. Robert McMahan, President of Kettering University, unpacks the evolving crisis in higher education and what it truly means to prepare students for the future. He sheds light on the rise of "adulting" classes as a symptom of a larger issue: students entering college without essential life skills. Dr. Robert gives us a peek into Kettering University's integrated experiential model, where students rotate between 12 weeks in class and 12 weeks in cooperative placement roles at real companies—not internships, but embedded work. We also look into why traditional four-year universities are struggling, facing declining public trust, overcapacity, and the looming demographic cliff, and how new learning models and market disruptions are forcing a much-needed reimagining of higher education. Dr. McMahan emphasizes that future-proofing students isn't about teaching them fixed skills like coding, but cultivating habits of mind: critical thinking, adaptability, resilience, and the ability to solve complex problems.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

Don't you hate how every HR company out there says they are powered by AI? The truth is most difficult if it's just fluff. Human Intelligence™ from Workhuman is one of the few solutions that actually uses AI to help you get insights about your culture by analyzing the recognition data of your workforce. It helps managers coach better, shows you where culture is thriving, and is so effective at helping companies make smarter decisions, Workhuman backs it with the industry's only ROI Guarantee. In a world of noisy tech, this one actually feels... human. Learn more at Workhuman.com and see how Human Intelligence is becoming a force for good in the workplace.

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Sparks: Five Trends Shaping the Future of Work… And How to Thrive In This Changing World Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

Imagine waking up one day and realizing the world changed, but you didn't. That's what it's like for many organizations today, stuck on a decades-long train ride, speeding ahead without ever looking out the window. The future of work isn't coming. It's already here, and most companies are still running on definitions of "work," "manager," and "employee" that feel more like satire than strategy. Work sucks for too many people, and it doesn't have to. In today's Leadership Spark, we break down the five major trends transforming work as we know it: evolving behaviors, shifting demographics, globalization, mobility, and accelerating tech. As we step into the future of work, organizations must get off the train, look up, and start designing work that actually works for humans.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

The Black Box of AI: What the World's Leading Expert Says We Still Don't Know Jun 16, 2025

Show notes

AI is the most powerful tool humanity has ever created. Yet, it's also a black box we barely understand. How do we build the future of work with a system that can make decisions, take actions, and sometimes… make it up as it goes? In today's episode, Babak Hodjat, CTO of AI at Cognizant, joins us to uncover the truth and the hype behind today's most powerful AI technologies. We explore the evolution of agentic AI, multi-agentic platforms, and how organizations like Cognizant are already using AI agents to streamline RFPs, HR systems, and even intranet interactions. Babak exposes the promise and pitfalls of large language models, breaks down AI hallucinations, and debates whether AI truly "understands" anything or just predicts the next word. We also unpack the difference between AI and algorithms, the current capabilities (and limits) of generative AI, and address the ongoing challenge of AI trust, ethics, and resilience in real-world business contexts. Expect mind-blowing stories about AI agents threatening to expose fake affairs, hacking game systems, and working alongside humans in a multi-agent workforce.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Sparks: How CHROs Can Lead Human Transformation and Shape the Future of Work Jun 13, 2025

Show notes

Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) are now responsible for shaping the future of work. But to do that, you can't stay in the HR box. To HR leaders, it's time to stop thinking of yourself as administrators and start showing up as architects of human transformation. The new world of work operates on an entirely new playbook, we can't keep putting band-aids on outdated systems. We must start reimagining work itself. In today's Leadership Spark, we're rethinking the outdated ideas about work, engagement, and the role of HR in shaping the future. We explore why perks don't create real employee experience, how employer branding often masks the truth about our workplaces, and what it takes to move from managing people to truly transforming how we work.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Workhuman's Chief Human Experience Officer on Why Nice Leaders Create Weak Teams and How to Build a Resilient Culture Jun 09, 2025

Show notes

The workplace is evolving, but not without friction. AI, culture, and leadership expectations are colliding, and while some leaders scramble to keep up, others are creating environments that feel more like day spas than places of work. How do you lead with kindness while still setting high expectations? In this episode of Future Ready Leadership, I spoke with KeyAnna Schmiedl, Chief Human Experience Officer at Workhuman, about what it really takes to evolve workplace culture and leadership in a time of rapid change. We explored the current state of AI and its role in supporting, not replacing the human element at work. KeyAnna sheds light on the shift from compliance-focused HR to human experience-focused leadership, and how organizations can avoid the trap of over-accommodation and instead focus on clarity, accountability, and human-centered leadership. We discussed the misapplication of psychological safety, the dangers of therapy language, the importance of building resilience and critical thinking, and why companies struggle to define and communicate their true culture.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Sparks: We're Doing Vulnerability Wrong: Why Being Accountable Needs to Exist Along With Being Vulnerable Jun 06, 2025

Show notes

We've misunderstood what it really means to lead with vulnerability. Organizations are falling into a dangerous trap of glorifying vulnerability without pairing it with accountability. That's why workplace cultures that enable excuses, not growth, exist. In this episode, we explore why vulnerability at work has gone too far, and how it's being misused as a shield from accountability. We draw a sharp line between simply being vulnerable and leading with vulnerability, which means owning your gaps and showing what you're doing to grow. When vulnerability lacks follow-through, it creates a culture of entitlement instead of growth. With all the changes happening fast in the modern world of work, leaders can't afford to not course-correct. It's time to redefine what vulnerability should look like at work.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman:

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

How Amazon's Cybersecurity Chief Says Leaders Should Prepare for AI Threats Jun 02, 2025

Show notes

AI is a double-edged sword—boosting capabilities while amplifying risks if used carelessly. Every leader today is racing to understand how AI will impact their business. So, how can you protect your organization? In this episode, Steve Schmidt, SVP and Chief Security Officer at Amazon, breaks down the real risks at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and leadership. Steve shares why the biggest cybersecurity threats aren't just technical but human, highlighting how AI lowers the barrier for attacks like phishing and social engineering. We explore the concept of agentic AI, which doesn't just generate information but takes action; this creates new risks that would require leaders to rethink authentication, output validation, and compartmentalization. Steve also shares how Amazon speeds up security reviews by up to 80% with AI, all while keeping humans in the loop to guard against flaws. Today, it's of high importance to build a strong security culture, and address the rising risks of shadow AI inside organizations. Because while AI is a powerful tool, it's not a magic bullet. Leaders must pair AI with human oversight, robust training, and thoughtful guardrails to protect their organizations.

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This episode is sponsored by Workhuman.

These days, it feels like there isn't much good to go around in the world of work.

But Workhuman knows when we celebrate the good in each of us, we bring out the best in all of us.

It's why they created the world's # 1 employee recognition platform — and they didn't stop there, combining rich recognition data with AI to create Human Intelligence, so you can get uniquely good insights into performance, skills, engagement and more. To learn more about how you can join their force for good, go to Workhuman.com, or check out their own podcast, "How We Work," which explores the trends, issues, relationships, and experiences that shape our workplaces.

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Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

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