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A CEO calls employees “low-value human capital,” companies brag about AI while cutting people loose, and somehow, workers are told to just be resilient.

To be honest about what that does to trust and what leaders can do differently, I sat down with Tamar Cohen, founder of Halo Effect, to talk about the real human cost of fear-based management and the very real business costs that follow.

Tamar shares two stories that changed how she thinks about leadership: one boss who responded to a scary personal moment with a simple, powerful line, “Tell me what you need, I’ll get it for you,” and another who pushed her to deliver a high-stakes presentation while she had pneumonia. We use those extremes to distinguish between supportive and dehumanizing leadership, especially in high-pressure environments where burnout is always lurking.

From there, we dig into resilience as momentum, why trust is a lagging indicator, and why layoffs don’t magically create efficiency when the people who remain are disillusioned and overloaded.

We also talk about the AI bubble and what it really costs companies, from data cleaning to training to massive infrastructure bets, and why the promised ROI can be harder to reach than leaders admit.

Most importantly, we lay out a practical, human-centered AI operating model: be transparent, bring employees into decisions about the AI tools you want to use, invest in real upskilling, map processes before automating, and communicate clearly about how roles will evolve.

If you care about employee experience, organizational culture, the future of work, and leading through AI without breaking trust, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with the best (or worst) leadership line you’ve ever heard.

Tamar Cohen is the CEO and Founder of HaloEffect. She doesn’t talk about employee engagement, she’s working to replace it. She equips leaders with a new operating model for work experience in an era where AI, distributed work, and trust erosion are reshaping how people contribute. With a background in CX, EX, and organizational design across global enterprises, she translates complex workforce signals into strategies that drive retention, performance, and belief in the workplace.

• Email: tcohen@myhaloeffect.com
• Website: www.myhaloeffect.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tamarcohen

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Producer / Editor: Neel Panji

Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services

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#trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

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If you’ve ever looked at your career and thought, “I did everything right, so why do I feel so wrong?” this conversation is for you.

We sit down with Graham Skidmore, co-founder of Harmony Health, to unpack what happens when corporate success collides with wellbeing and why the system can feel fine until you step outside the lanes it was built for.

We talk about the moment Graham hit the C-suite in a 20,000-person organization and realized he was the most miserable he’d ever been. From there, we get practical with a definition of happiness he uses as a compass: leading a life of self-guided choices while loving yourself, others, and your surroundings. That leads to one of the simplest, most disruptive questions you can ask on a hard day: whose choices am I operating on right now?

Then we zoom out to leadership, resilience, and the future of work. We challenge one-size-fits-all systems that demand conformity and then blame individuals for struggling. We explore individualized support, neurodiversity, and why investing in humans as individuals can unlock overlooked talent. We also take a human-centric look at artificial intelligence: AI as a way to augment human intelligence, personalize learning, and free people to do the creative, empathic, problem-solving work machines can’t.

If you care about employee wellbeing, ethical AI, and building healthier workplaces that actually fit real people, you’ll get a lot from this one.

Graham Skidmore believes we can create a world of happy, healthy, productive and empowered people, by investing in people as individuals and their potential.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-skidmore

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@understandingthescienceofyou

Harmony Health Institute: https://harmonyhealthinstitute.com/

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Producer / Editor: Neel Panji

Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services

Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes

Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us.

#trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor

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We sit down with Chase Sterling, workplace well-being expert and founder of the Wellbeing Think Tank, to get honest about what support actually looks like when someone is stressed, grieving, or barely holding it together. The throughline is resilience—a human process that requires time, space, and genuine psychological safety at work.

We talk human-centered leadership in practical terms: focusing on the human so performance follows, recognizing that people bring invisible burdens into meetings, and building cultures of belonging that do not depend on fake cheerfulness.

Chase shares why non-toxic positivity matters, how leaders can hold space instead of trying to fix emotions, and why transparency beats polished messaging. We also talk about feedback, accountability, and giving people a clear chance to change.

Then we zoom out to the systems level: employee retention, turnover cost, healthcare costs, and the future of work. Chase challenges the current moment of record profits paired with layoffs, calls out when greed drives decisions, and argues that AI is a useful automation tool but not a replacement for critical thinking, creativity, and humane judgment.

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a manager or teammate, and leave a review.

What is one thing a leader has said or done that made you feel genuinely supported at work?

Chase Sterling, MA, is a speaker and the founder and executive director of Wellbeing Think Tank known for amplifying experts over influencers and providing educational events that support individual and organizational wellbeing.

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__________

Producer / Editor: Neel Panji

Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity. Learn more: www.manyachylinski.com/services

Subscribe to the newsletter: manyachylinski.com/notes

Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us.

#trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor