Chain of Learning® is the leadership podcast for leaders and change practitioners who believe that people, not tools, are the foundation of lasting results.
If you're working to transform your organization's culture, develop leaders at every level, and build teams that are capable, confident, and empowered to solve problems and innovate, this podcast is for you.
Hosted by Katie Anderson, award-winning author of "Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn" and globally recognized expert in people-centered leadership, Chain of Learning explores how leaders break free from the Doer Trap™, and create the conditions in their organization for success and build a vibrant culture where impact is exponential.
Each biweekly episode offers practical insights, reflective questions, and real-world examples to help you:
- Develop leaders at scale, not just one at a time
- Build high-performing cultures of continuous learning, grounded in psychological safety, trust, and empowerment, that thrive and grow
- Lead culture transformation and change leadership with intention
- Strengthen coaching culture, problem-solving, and leadership development across your organization
- Move from managers who focus on outcomes to leaders who develop people, improve performance, and get results
Grounded in human-centered leadership and adult learning practices, and informed by principles of the Toyota Way, Lean thinking, and operational excellence, Chain of Learning features conversations with influential thinkers and leaders shaping the future of leadership at scale and organizational learning. Past guests include Carol Dweck, Michael Bungay Stanier, Rich Sheridan, Barry O'Reilly, Steve Spear, Jim Womack, Gene Kim, and Larry Culp.
Subscribe and follow Chain of Learning® to deepen your impact. Share this podcast with your colleagues, fellow change leaders, and friends so we can strengthen our Chain of Learning together.
Join the conversation: ChainOfLearning.com
Katie Anderson’s website: KBJAnderson.com
Connect with Katie: linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson
Read Katie's Shingo Publication Award-winning book: LearningToLeadLeadingToLearn.com
Download the KATALYST™ Change Leader Assessment: KBJAnderson.com/Katalyst
Popular Episode Topics Include: Leadership Development, Developing Leaders at Scale, The Doer Trap, Coaching Culture, Building a Culture of Learning, Culture Transformation, Change Leadership, Leading Change, Change Readiness, Change Adoption, Stakeholder Engagement, Organizational Change, Lean Leadership, Lean Thinking, Operational Excellence, Toyota Way, Toyota Leadership, People-Centered Leadership, Psychological Safety, Building Trust, Leadership Coaching, Break the Telling Habit, Leader as Coach, Continuous Improvement, Kaizen, Organizational Learning, Problem-Solving Culture, Developing People, High-Performing Teams, Learning Organization, Executive Leadership, Strategic Alignment, Leading Without Authority, Influence, Leading Through Influence, Leadership Identity, Gemba Leadership, A3 Thinking, PDCA, Growth Mindset, Leader Development, Japan Leadership Experience, Learning to Lead Leading to Learn, Leadership Podcast
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Données mises à jour le 06/11/2026
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88| When Urgency Isn't an Emergency: How to Choose When to Step In
mercredi 4 novembre 2026 • Durée 23:52
Stepping back is stepping up. But it's not stepping away. Every time I say that, I get the same question: aren't there times I should step in?
And yes, there are. But far fewer times than you think. Or than you actually react to.
When everything feels like a five-alarm fire, you step in. The immediate problem is fixed, but the root cause still remains. The next fire is ready to burn, and your people never build the confidence and problem-solving skills to solve the next problem without you. And every day becomes a crisis that needs you.
How many of these fires are real emergencies? And what can you do to develop more fire preventers than firefighters in your organization?
You’ll Learn:
Why the times that require your expertise or immediate help are fewer than you think
How to tell the difference between something urgent and a real emergency
Why to define the criteria for stepping in — in advance, not under pressure
What real firefighters do differently from organizations stuck in "firefighting" mode
How to come back after you step in, so both the ownership and the learning return
Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE: 01:00 Why stepping back isn't stepping away 02:50 How a culture of heroism creates constant firefighting 04:15 When helping becomes unhelpful 06:15 How stepping in can create learned helplessness 07:20 Why everything feels like a five-alarm fire 08:30 What real firefighters know about preventing crises 10:45 How to recognize a real emergency 11:30 When stepping in is necessary 13:15 Why leaders need to define intervention criteria in advance 15:10 The intention pause: choosing how to respond 16:35 What to do after you've stepped in 17:10 Three ways to return ownership and learning 18:15 How leaders can create more time for learning 20:00 What fire captains teach us about developing leaders 20:35 Moving from saving the day to developing problem-solvers 21:30 The art of unburdened leadership
87| When Help Becomes Unhelpful: How Providing Support Develops People
mercredi 28 octobre 2026 • Durée 21:45
Help and support. Two words we use almost interchangeably.
But do they mean the same thing? And does the distinction even matter?
It does. Because your help can be the very thing that keeps someone from developing their own competence and confidence.
You want people who are capable and confident to solve problems at every level, without needing you to do it for them. But the project gets done, or the problem gets solved, and the person still can't do it without you. And you find yourself unintentionally owning the responsibility of doing it all.
Providing support is an essential part of people-centered leadership. You meet them where they're at, and keep the ownership where it belongs.
You’ll Learn:
Why providing help and support are not the same thing
Why your intention to be helpful can still lead to overstepping ownership of others' thinking and problem-solving
How to assess what someone needs from you as a leader in the moment
Why the difference between helping and supporting isn't about time or effort, but where ownership resides
How asking a follow-up question, instead of giving your answer, can become one of your most powerful coaching practices for developing people
Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
86| Ask, Don't Tell: How Humble Inquiry Builds Deeper Connection [with Peter Schein]
mercredi 14 octobre 2026 • Durée 01:01:49
How do you build deeper human connection in your relationships so that you can more effectively lead change and help others?
That question sits at the heart of some of the most influential books in my work, including Helping and Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein: how we help, not as the expert with all the answers, but by asking better questions as a leader and creating the conditions for other people to develop their own ideas.
Edgar’s work has profoundly shaped how I think about leadership, learning, and helping. And in the later years of his life, his son Peter Schein became an important partner in continuing to develop and evolve these ideas of humble leadership and organizational culture.
Peter spent 30 years in Silicon Valley in corporate strategy and development before partnering with his father to co-write seven books. He recently released the third edition of Humble Inquiry, continuing to bring these foundational ideas forward for how we lead, learn, and create change today.
In this conversation, Peter and I explore how to move beyond transactional relationships to build genuine personal ones. We get underneath the meaning of many of the words we use today—curiosity, vulnerability, and psychological safety—and why seeking clarity gets you further than seeking certainty.
You’ll Learn:
Why "don’t bring me a problem, bring me a solution" teaches people not to speak up
Why you're most vulnerable when you don't know what you're missing
How "Sharing the MIC" makes humble inquiry practical: Motivation, Intervention, Contribution
The difference between helping as the expert with the answer and helping as the process consultant who creates the conditions
Why going to see isn't the same as transparency
ABOUT MY GUEST: Peter Schein is the co-founder of the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute. He spent thirty years in Silicon Valley in strategy and corporate development at companies including Apple, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems, and studied anthropology at Stanford University.
85| It's Not the Workload, It's the Thoughtload: Move from Overwhelm to Focus [with Liane Davey]
Your team isn't resisting change. They don't have room for it.
It's not just workload that's overwhelming us, it's what Liane Davey calls our "thoughtload": the invisible tax on our performance and presence.
Liane is an organizational psychologist who works with CEOs and executive teams leading organizational transformation. In her latest book she uncovers how complexity, decisions, and emotional weight are draining us, leaving us feeling like there's too much to do and no space left to think.
We bring home what's weighing on us at work, and what we're worried about comes to the next meeting with us. We end up half-present, consumed by what's going on inside, not what's in front of us.
Liane shares how to lighten the noise inside your head to focus your attention, work through what you're carrying emotionally, and get your energy back.
Urgency, constant change, and the pressure to deliver aren't going away. But thoughtload is something you can manage, before it turns into leadership burnout for you or your team.
You’ll Learn:
Why the person pushing back on your organizational change isn't a resistor, and what is actually going on inside their brain
Why we've become intolerant of iteration, and how to position a decision so that correcting course doesn't land as flip-flopping
How your team can be busy, productive, and still not moving toward the outcome
How a heavy thoughtload keeps you from having a hard conversation, and how avoiding productive conflict makes your load heavier
What it means to "metabolize your thoughtload", and why filling every walk and commute with input leaves no room to think
ABOUT MY GUEST: Dr. Liane Davey is an organizational psychologist and New York Times bestselling author who advises executive teams on strategy, decision-making, and team dynamics. She is co-founder of the firm 3COze and the author of and . Her doctoral research on how team dynamics affect innovation has shaped three decades of her work with senior leaders.
84| You Want a People-Centered Learning Culture. What's Getting in the Way?
mercredi 16 septembre 2026 • Durée 25:14
People-centered. Learning organization. Culture of continuous improvement. We use a lot of different words to describe what we are trying to create.
But do we actually mean the same thing? And if we all want it, what's stopping us from getting there? And what is the one thing that could have the biggest impact?
So I asked. And you answered.
Leaders and change practitioners around the world responded. There wasn't one shared definition or set of words for a people-centered learning culture. But the same essence was in almost every answer.
The pressures we're all working in are real, and they're not going away. Yet the biggest impact comes from something we can influence: our own leadership behavior. And that starts with us.
You’ll Learn:
Why "people-centered" and "learning" are intertwined concepts that support each other in creating a learning organization
How to describe what we're trying to build to leaders who never ask for a people-centered learning culture
Why "respect for people" means more than treating people well, and how it's fundamental to developing people and organizational success
How urgency, firefighting, and short-term pressure to deliver results exacerbate our pull toward doing rather than developing people
Why the environment is seen as the barrier, and leadership behavior is the lever for change
83| Keep Ownership at the Right Level: How to Sustain Organizational Transformation [with Anna Pessah]
mercredi 2 septembre 2026 • Durée 41:17
Overstepping ownership rarely looks like overstepping. It looks like moving things along.
You know how something could be improved, so you give your suggestion. Work gets done, progress is visible, but the person you were there to develop doesn't build the capability they need, and the improvement doesn't sustain.
Every change leader, manager, and executive does this at some point. And when we take on ownership of what isn't ours, we end up the bottleneck.
As a transformational change leader at Kaiser Permanente, Anna Pessah watches this play out every day with the internal consulting team she leads, and with the physician and operational leaders she supports.
We break down this challenge and share the practices to use instead. Leaders don't need to stop helping or teaching. It's about getting clear about what each person owns, and adjusting how you help based on what that leader needs in the moment.
When ownership sits in the right place, people grow, improvements hold, and you have the space to do what is actually yours to do.
You’ll Learn:
How to make ownership explicit from the start, by contracting up front and saying out loud which hat you're wearing, coach or consultant or teacher
Why leaders learn good coaching practices best by being coached, and how making your own practice visible lets others model it
Why the pull to step in gets stronger the more you care about the outcome
Why a new practice often swings too far one direction at first, and how to find the middle without abandoning it
When asking coaching questions stops being helpful, and how to be directive without taking over the thinking
ABOUT MY GUEST:
Anna Pessah leads the internal consulting team that oversees the operating system at the North Valley Service Area of Kaiser Permanente, where she coaches physician and operational leaders on strategy, management systems, and the behaviors that support a culture of improvement. She is an industrial engineer from the University of Michigan and an ICF-certified coach. Anna brings a blend of systems thinking, operational improvement, and leadership development to help leaders generate insight, turn goals into action, and build habits that stick.
82| Connect the Parts, Focus on People: Inside the Toyota Economic System [with Olivier Larue]
mercredi 19 août 2026 • Durée 57:22
Profit or cash. Efficiency or flexibility. Speed, or doing it right.
Leaders feel like they have to make trade-offs like these all the time. But the choice often isn't real.
Some contradictions are unavoidable. Others only look that way until you understand the real problem. The most effective organizations realize they don't have to pick a side if they can resolve the underlying tension.
Olivier Larue has spent three decades helping companies do this, which he's documented in his three-book series The Toyota Economic System: a philosophy about people and society, the technical design that turns it into results, and the management practices that keep it alive through continuous learning.
The real breakthrough is never the tools, optimizing one part of the system, or making unnecessary tradeoffs. It's how every part connects, and understanding the real problem to solve, so people remain the focus and results last.
You’ll Learn:
How to tell a contradiction that's real from one that only looks real, so you stop choosing between things you can't afford to lose
Why an economic lens, not an operational one, changes where you look for the answer
Why the number and order of Toyota's seven wastes aren't arbitrary, and why the first one drives how you understand the rest
Why declaring people "empowered" means nothing without the conditions that let them act on it
How respect for people extends to avoiding layoffs even in downturns, and why that matters in a world of AI and supply chain disruptions
ABOUT MY GUEST:
Olivier Larue was trained by Toyota Motor Corporation and has spent thirty years helping Fortune 500 companies design and implement industrial manufacturing solutions, including more than a decade as a consultant with TSSC, the Toyota Production System Support Center, and hands-on work in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is the founder and president of Ydatum, and the author of the three-book series The Toyota Economic System.
81| Adapt How You Lead: Situational Leadership in Practice [with Suzie Bishop]
mercredi 5 août 2026 • Durée 38:55
Your leadership style isn't the problem. Your default is.
The gap between how you're leading and what the person in front of you actually needs is one of the most common and most invisible places leaders get stuck. Most of us default to one mode and don't notice the mismatch until something breaks down.
Suzie Bishop has spent over a decade at the Center for Leadership Studies helping leaders close that gap and strengthen their leadership effectiveness. Her new book, Situational Leadership, puts nearly sixty years of research into a practical framework for reading the situation, building leadership flexibility, and adapting your approach.
Suzie walks through the four leadership styles, how to read what someone needs in a given situation, and how to adapt your approach to coach, develop leaders, and lead through influence.
The best leaders don't pick one style and commit. They pause, assess the situation, and flex to have the impact you intend.
You’ll Learn:
Why "leadership is influence" reframes how you lead, and why influence has nothing to do with manipulation or control
How to diagnose what someone needs, and why one person can require four different approaches in the same conversation
How leadership flexibility and adaptability differ—and why knowing the styles isn't the same as knowing when to use them
Why only asking coaching questions can leave people stuck, and how to know when to step in with more directive leadership
How the "power of the pause" helps you move from reacting out of habit to adapting with intention
ABOUT MY GUEST:
Suzie Bishop is VP of Product Development at The Center for Leadership Studies. She's a Certified Professional in Training Management, a Stakeholder Centered Coach, and a Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coach. Suzie is co-author of and is currently writing her next book, , with Marshall Goldsmith.
80| Bad News First: How a Leader's Response Builds a Culture of Learning [with Isao Yoshino]
mercredi 22 juillet 2026 • Durée 44:29
How many problems are actually visible in your organization?
Research shows senior leaders see just 4%. The other 96% stay hidden — invisible, yet still there. And some aren't even recognized by employees as problems anymore, because they have become the norm.
We all say we want psychological safety. But you don't get it by saying you want it. People-centered leadership is about creating conditions for people to speak up and highlight issues by how you, and leaders across your system, respond.
Recorded live with a group of global leaders participating in my Japan Leadership Experience in May 2026, this special episode celebrates the sixth anniversary of Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn. You'll hear Isao Yoshino, a 40-year Toyota leader and the subject of my book, reflect on three of the book's most talked-about stories.
These examples bring two of Toyota's mottos to life, "bad news first" and "no problem is a problem," and show why a leader's response is what turns problems into a culture of improvement:
How his manager's response to a huge paint-shop mistake in his first months at Toyota shaped how he saw a leader's role
How andon — signaling a problem and stopping the line — changed the culture at NUMMI
How he found the courage to highlight his failing water ski boat business to President Fujio Cho
Whether on the front line or in the boardroom, creating the conditions where bad news comes first, and support follows, is what builds a culture of excellence.
You’ll Learn:
Why a leader's response to a mistake is fundamental to effective leadership and matters more than the mistake itself
The two actions behind a bad-news-first culture: respond down to help, not blame, and signal up when something's off course
Why andon is a leadership practice, not just a factory signal, that works from the shop floor to the executive suite
79| Build Powerful People: Why Transformation Starts with Your Own [with Gary Peterson]
mercredi 8 juillet 2026 • Durée 56:46
Efficiency and cost savings aren't what makes operational excellence last. People are.
The leaders who create enduring, high-performing organizations are after something beyond business results. They want a company where people end the day more capable, more confident, more energized than when it began. That's the difference between a workplace that wears people down and one that builds powerful people.
Gary Peterson spent more than 30 years building that kind of culture of continuous improvement at OC Tanner. But the hardest part wasn't creating the systems or processes to get better outcomes. It was his own transformation — coming to see how, without meaning to, he'd become the leader getting in his people's way.
Put people first, and the results follow.
And the deepest transformation you'll ever lead is your own.
You’ll Learn:
Why operational excellence only lasts when leaders focus on building people, not just cutting costs and eliminating waste
Why the best leaders make an identity shift from being the expert with every answer to creating the conditions for others to solve problems
What it takes to move managers from enforcers to coaches and make continuous improvement something your team never fears, even as roles and headcount shift
How to influence real organizational change when you have no authority to make anyone follow
Why so many leaders give up on culture change too soon, and how long it really takes
ABOUT MY GUEST:
Gary Peterson spent more than 30 years at OC Tanner, where he held leadership roles across manufacturing, marketing, and operations, most recently as Executive Vice President of Supply Chain and Manufacturing. He led the people-first transformation that earned OC Tanner the Shingo Prize and made it one of the few companies Toyota holds up as a global showcase for its system outside automotive. Gary is an Association for Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame inductee.
IMPORTANT LINKS:
TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE: 00:52 When your good intentions become unhelpful
03:35 How being the expert can take ownership away from others
04:45 The difference between providing help and support
05:55 Why ownership matters more than time or effort
07:20 When doing it yourself keeps your team dependent
08:05 Three responsibilities of leaders who develop people
09:15 When caring becomes carrying: The Doer Trap
11:45 Why productive struggle is essential for learning
12:55 When to let people struggle and when to step in
13:20 How AI can shortcut learning—or support deeper thinking
14:35 Why stepping in limits your leadership capacity
15:15 How to assess whether someone needs help or support
16:35 The power of asking instead of answering
17:15 The “Jedi mind trick” that helps people find their own answers
18:15 What providing support looks like in practice
20:05 One question to try in your next conversation
Peter partnered with his father, Edgar Schein, to co-write seven books, including Humble Leadership, and has continued to evolve their work through new editions of Humble Inquiry and The Corporate Culture Survival Guide. Edgar Schein was Professor Emeritus at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is recognized as one of the founders of organizational psychology.
Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com
TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:
03:06 Transactional vs. relational leadership and why connection matters 08:10 Why efficiency without relationships limits effectiveness 12:19 When expertise gets in the way of seeing the bigger picture 16:24 Why clarity matters more than certainty 20:31 When curiosity, vulnerability, and psychological safety become buzzwords 22:08 Why you’re vulnerable to what you don’t know 24:36 What Humble Inquiry actually looks like in leadership 27:26 How Humble Inquiry builds both trust and better information 28:35 Why “bring me solutions, not problems” keeps people from speaking up 30:35 How to “Share the MIC” and make Humble Inquiry practical 36:21 Helping as the expert vs. helping as a process consultant 38:33 How AI is changing where leaders and consultants add value 44:03 Making invisible team dynamics visible 49:35 Why being open to what you don’t know changes how you lead 52:26 What going to Gemba teaches us about Humble Inquiry 54:29 Why transparency and openness aren’t the same thing
06:51 What Situational Leadership looks like in practice
07:35 Flexibility vs. adaptability: the critical difference
07:48 The four Situational Leadership styles
11:41 How to recognize your natural leadership tendency
13:08 When asking questions isn’t effective coaching
16:46 How to be directive without taking away ownership
17:37 The cost of not adapting how you lead
21:37 Why organizations need a common leadership language
24:05 Creating the conditions for people to ask for help
25:24 The leadership challenge even top executives struggle with
29:06 How to give direction without taking over
30:33 Influence versus control when you have authority
31:06 Three types of power that shape your influence
32:51 Why trust is your most important source of power
36:02 The difference between flexibility and adaptability
37:08 Practice an intention pause before you respond
What the NUMMI turnaround shows about culture change: people adopt a better way when they discover it, not when they're told
Why "thank you for this mistake" is the keystone move for building psychological safety
ABOUT MY GUEST:
Isao Yoshino spent forty years at Toyota, from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, where he helped shape the people-centered learning culture the company is known for today. He was a key leader in the Kan-Pro senior-management development program and led the training of the American managers at NUMMI, the Toyota-GM joint venture, where he hired John Shook. He is the subject of Katie Anderson's Shingo Publication Award-winning book, Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.
TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE: 03:44 Why Toyota saw something different at OC Tanner
05:02 The real purpose of operational excellence
07:19 How Gary knew the culture was changing
09:00 Creating people who change the world
12:13 The outcome every leader should want
13:07 Two pillars that shaped the journey
14:26 Breaking a culture of fear and control
15:35 The five-minute habit that changed everything
17:15 Redefining what it means to be a manager
19:12 Why transformation takes longer than you think
20:05 What to do when leaders don't support the change
22:26 The experiment that almost got shut down
24:19 Helping managers make the coaching shift
25:23 When people outgrow their leaders
28:28 Why improvement should never threaten jobs
30:23 The manager who couldn't stop yelling
32:23 The leadership habit that destroys ownership
35:35 Becoming the leader you never wanted to be
37:00 The habit that was holding people back
38:01 The executive behavior that shuts people down
40:07 Proving your worth vs. creating conditions
45:37 Showing results isn't the same as showing people
49:53 Where transformation really begins
51:16 The question every leader should ask about their people
53:34 When helping starts limiting growth
55:14 The shift that made everything else possible
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