Conversations for Leaders & Teams

E81. Wisdom, Integrity, Bravery, Kindness: Sam Isaacson on Next Generation Leadership

• Dr. Kelly M.G. Whelan • Episode 81

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Sam Isaacson challenges us to rethink leadership through three powerful lenses—as ancestors, humans, and change makers. This framework reveals how truly effective leadership transcends quarterly targets and focuses instead on lasting impact, full humanity, and meaningful transformation.

• Leaders should be change makers who catalyze transformation, not just maintain status quo
• Thinking of yourself as a "leader as ancestor" means considering what legacy you'll leave for future generations
• Embracing "leader as human" means recognizing our bodies, emotions, and values as assets, not liabilities
• Four universal leadership traits—wisdom, integrity, bravery, and kindness—have been valued across all cultures and time periods
• Systemic kindness creates ripple effects throughout organizations when leaders prioritize human impact
• Technology evolution shapes leadership styles, from the industrial revolution to today's AI revolution
• Tomorrow's leaders must understand technology while maintaining human-centered approaches
• Governance of creativity will become an essential leadership skill as AI capabilities expand

Learn more about Sam on LinkedIn.


BelemLeaders–Your organization's trusted partner for leader and team development. Visit our website to connect: belemleaders.org or book a discovery call today! belem.as.me/discovery

Until next time, keep doing great things!

Speaker 1:

And welcome to Conversations for Leaders and Teams. Today we are talking with Sam Isaacson, who is a coaching consultant and thought leader with particular expertise in the strategic use of coaching and organizations, and coaching with technology. He is the founder of the Coach Tech Collective, a global community of professional coaches curious about technology, and co-founder of AI Coach Chat, a technology platform making non-directive conversations accessible to those who can't afford a human coach. He was chair of the UK government group that developed the coaching professional apprenticeship, england's biggest coaching qualification. He is also an author with books including Next Generation Leadership, how to Thrive as a Coach in a Digital World, and the Digital and AI Coaches Handbook. Welcome to the show, sam. How are you today and where are you coming to us from?

Speaker 2:

Yes, Hi Kelly, I'm pretty good today. Actually, I'm dialing in from London and London. If anyone knows anything about London, it's that we have a lot of cloud here and the overcast skies. The last couple of days seem to have cleared and so beautiful blue skies. It's a sunny day. It's cold, but it's lovely and sunny. So, yeah, looking forward to getting out.

Speaker 1:

Sun is good. Sun is good. I'm in sunny Florida, but today it's not too sunny.

Speaker 2:

Okay, we've got it all.

Speaker 1:

I have the cloud cover, you have the sun, yeah lovely. Oh well, I appreciate you being here. I do have a couple of your books.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I appreciate you being here. I do have a couple of your books.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I recognize those, a couple of those, and we're going to be talking a little bit about kind of both of them and just kind of see where the conversation goes. But I'm going to start right in with some questions and we'll go from there. So I heard you describe leaders as ancestors, humans and change makers. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, well, they kind of don't really fit together. And that's kind of the point, that these are three lenses through which to look at leadership, and I think it's actually important to recognize that each sits as its own sort of autonomous, abstract concept which leadership can sit within, and that when we combine the three of them together, that's where, that's where we have truly effective leaders that do things in the right sort of way. So I'll briefly explain each of them and hopefully we'll see that where the venn diagram sits. So, um, I'll start with change maker, because I think that's probably the simplest of the three, which is'll see that where the Venn diagram sits. So I'll start with change maker, because I think that's probably the simplest of the three, which is to say that if you are a leader, there ought to be some sense of you acting as a catalyst for change. And it's simple enough, actually, when we think about the role of leadership in a lot of organizations, that the role of leader is something that is. Role of leader is something that is sort of given to people as they just progress through a career ladder until you take on a role in which you're not expected to change things, you're expected to maintain things, and for me, that isn't leadership, that's some sort of curator role. But we're talking leadership here. We're meant to be introducing change and leading people through a response to change, and if there's anything that is true about the world we're living in at the moment is that we're surrounded by change, and so we need to be those who are provoking change ourselves, in ourselves and in our people. That's an important aspect of leadership, so leaders should be change makers. I think the leader as ancestor piece.

Speaker 2:

That's really where the title of my book, next Generation Leadership, came from this idea that actually, when we think about ourselves as leaders, there's a lot of characteristics that we're presented with as these good leadership characteristics. And, in truth, when we look back on ourselves in the future and we think, what are the leadership traits that I've demonstrated, it's not going to be so important that we acted decisively, but it is going to be important that we left a legacy that we're really proud of and are really able to say, yeah, I did the right thing during that time when things were really tough, I made the right decisions. You know, I did things in a way that I'm really proud of. And so, thinking about the role of leader in terms of the impacts that it has at a systemic level, just in the teams that we're working with, and then the external stakeholders that are interacting with, those, which includes the non-work world, you know, the families and neighborhoods, the natural world, and particularly thinking about, what does this mean for my children, my grandchildren? Are they going to look back at the role I've played as a leader and think I'm so happy that this person was a leader at that time? Or are they going to have some of the difficult conversations that we're having to have at the moment?

Speaker 2:

Thinking about is the way that we acted as a race, you know, 50, 100, 1000 years ago, you know, is it appropriate that we acted in that way? Then? You know, do we want to kind of make excuses for our ancestors? I don't want to feel like my descendants need to make excuses for me, and so that's an important aspect there. And then the third of those three lenses, which is, you know, leader as human.

Speaker 2:

This really is, then, the way that those two concepts are then applied in reality, which is that we are all humans and we are often treated in the work context as if we are effectively brains that happen to be housed in, you know, in flesh robots.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of the way that we are treated. You know a piece in a machine and actually we have got human bodies and our bodies give us information and we can lead using the information our body gives us. We have got emotions and our emotions are real and valid and they give us important data to draw from. It doesn't mean out of anger, but it means you know, recognize I am feeling frightened at the moment. I don't need to ignore it, I just need to recognize this is something that is real for me. Maybe others are also feeling that. You know, let's bring that into the conversation and let's recognize things like I've got personal values and you know, with my upbringing I am a whole human. I am not just CFO or head of IT, service delivery or something, as if it's you know this somebody writing a textbook and we've sort of created this role inside it where we haven't got the human there. So hopefully that's enough. I'll let you fill in some of the gaps there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you for that. And, as you were, as you were talking, you were talking about legacy. I'm wondering if, in your research, if that you know how I want to lead my legacy, do you believe that it's different based on the generations? Have you thought about that?

Speaker 2:

Could you explain what you mean by the question?

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm thinking about what's important for me in this day and age in leaving a legacy. Do you believe that it's the same over time or that it changes based on what we're experiencing within our generation and what we want to leave?

Speaker 2:

Well, that is an extraordinarily difficult topic to wrestle with. In some ways, I think the answer is actually much simpler than we want to make it. So. There are certain human characteristics that have always been valued universally, across cultures, across times. I summarise these as basically these four characteristics, or four leadership traits, if you like, of wisdom, integrity, bravery and kindness. You like of wisdom, integrity, bravery and kindness, where there is no society at any point in history that has said we want people to not have integrity, or we want people to be cowards or we want people to be unkind.

Speaker 2:

You know, these are they. They they're leadership traits that we have always valued and it's probably a little bit too simple to just get caught up in some sort of societal pressure that we end up kind of defining it based on trying to think of what is a good example that isn't going to get anybody into trouble. There probably isn't. One is there. You know that we can end up saying, well, at this moment this thing is true or appears to be true and therefore I need to sort of stand behind this particular narrative. I don't think that it's that important. The narrative itself isn't so important, but just exhibiting integrity, exhibiting bravery, exhibiting kindness and wisdom, and wisdom really is admitting that you don't know and it's okay wisdom and wisdom really is admitting that you don't know, and it's okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a good leadership trait. When we look back at the great philosophers that have shaped Western thinking, when you look at what they were writing, they didn't seem to write hey, I am the cleverest person around it's. I've looked as far as I can possibly get and I've discovered that I know much less than I thought I did. That's something that's good, that's right.

Speaker 1:

Now I love that answer because you know I never thought about it until you were talking and then I was trying to focus on you but that popped into my mind and then around the emotions, that is something I just had a conversation yesterday with a leader, like it's okay, and too many times you know we're thinking about that. You know authoritative leadership style that used to be and that you were not able to bring emotions into the workplace. You weren't able to bring your full self and we want people now to be their full selves and to bring those emotions. And, like you said, it's not like we're going to be having fistfights or anything within the office, but we definitely want people to exhibit their emotions and, like you said, that leads into what a person is feeling and experiencing in those moments. So I appreciate that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I think it's important also to acknowledge that there are these little fashionable throwaway statements that get thrown out as if it's, uh, a universal truth to say I mean, you haven't said it in there, but there, a way that it would be phrased by certain people is this idea of like, bring your whole self to work, and in certain circumstances, that would be utterly ridiculous. It's totally inappropriate. You shouldn't be bringing your whole self to work, but you should be aware of your whole self in order to bring an appropriate, right version of yourself into the workplace. Um, and that's, I think it's something that it's easy to to your question around. You know, how do you leave a legacy?

Speaker 2:

Within the current context, it can feel like there are two. There are only two routes to take. If you're going through a divorce and it's really tough and you're high in emotions all the time, you should either fully present yourself in your stressed-out state and everyone should just accept you exactly as you are and never correct it, or you should compartmentalise and act as if this is a separate world that is not at all relevant to the way that you're turning up to work, when actually the truth is. In some ways, both are true and neither are true. It is a truth and also there are appropriate ways to act and it's not sensible to drag other people into this little world that you've got going on. It's probably better to simply increase in self-awareness.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. In your book, next Generation Leadership, you write I believe that good leadership is critical in allowing the best possible world of tomorrow to be born, and you talk about the systemic kindness. So I'd love to hear maybe a little bit about that.

Speaker 2:

Well, this idea of systemic kindness was something that really came out of my first experiences of being a coach. So I first trained as a coach too long ago, a long time ago. But my experiences in having delivered coaching, I think particularly one-to-one maybe true in teams as well, but not particularly thought about that particularly in one-to-one. You know, a coaching session lasts, let's say, one hour. I haven't yet had a time when I've come to the end of an hour-long session with somebody and they've concluded that they want to be less kind than they were when they started. Throughout that process let's say somebody's wrestling with the idea of a restructure, which is a classic thing for leaders to really feel this tension of I want to do the right thing for the business and I need to do the right thing by people I want to feel like I'm being responsible, and responsible not just for the numbers but responsible for the impact I'm going to be having on people's lives as we make this decision together. Through slowing down in that coaching conversation and just having the opportunity to properly think and breathe and feel you can get to the end of that session. I have not yet had the experience where they go. Do you know what You're right. I don't need to care about everyone. I should be being harsher with the numbers. There's a lot more that people think about. Okay, how could I be creative about this to impact fewer people or reduce the impact on individuals? Or, you know, find up some ways to make this more appropriate for people. The way I'd like to be treated as if it's a new idea.

Speaker 2:

You know this been around for thousands of years, um, and so the thought that I had, the reason why I ended up becoming a coach, really was that if, through that experience, you're able to increase the amount of kindness exhibited by that one leader, that becomes part of the system in a way that processes do. That, you know, in a formalized way. You know you introduce a process and it introduces a systemic something. Whatever is appropriate, change the character of a leader and it has this ripple effect on the hundreds thousands of people that are impacted directly by that leader and the systems that they then interact with. And so the solution to making systems that are kind is through individuals. It has to be through leaders. You're not going to get processes to achieve that.

Speaker 1:

What's interesting is that anytime I hear the word kindness, it gives me pause, because it's not a word that we typically talk about. It's not in the day-to-day, for at least for me, but when you say it I I have a friend and in her email signature line I think it says um, in kindness. It always allows me just to, like I said, to pause and just to to reflect a little bit on that word well, I think there's something which is dangerously fridge magnet-like of you know saying just always be kind.

Speaker 2:

You know that's a nice thing, a bumper sticker or you know, one of those little pictures that you have by the side of your desk or something on your dressing table. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't really mean anything. Of course, be kind, you don't have something to hurt people, but be kind like this nice, nice, universal idea that means nothing. Basically, you stick it around the place and then pretend like we actually are. I'm much more aggressive with it than that, I think maybe could I could I say uh, it's.

Speaker 2:

It's. A good trait of positive masculinity is to be extremely ambitious in how kind you're going to be to people. I'm going to radically transform people's lives through kindness. I just love that thought. I get much more excited about that than I do about, you know, incrementally shifting somebody to be able to get a promotion from manager to senior manager and I just it's so such a small ambition to set ourselves.

Speaker 1:

So yeah. So, there's an intentionality about that. That sounds like like when you are, you know, coaching around kindness or bringing that into your conversations with clients. What does that look like? As far as that intentionality, are there steps that leaders take to be intentionally kind, or am I reading into it too much?

Speaker 2:

to it too much. Well, I think that that those little you know the four traits that I mentioned that wisdom, integrity, bravery, kindness that's basically it that I can position something in front of people, and it's not like every single coaching conversation I'm saying how can you do that more kindly? I think it just comes out. But I think that people are genuinely desirous of acting in a kind way, but they don't really know how because it's not codified into the way that they have been told how to be a leader. Even some of the bravery isn't particularly Bravery is something that you have to demonstrate in order to take on leadership positions.

Speaker 2:

As a general rule, that's something that comes up a lot in coaching. I think, like kindness is something which is like this optional extra where it's possible to be individually successful and not be very kind. There are some examples of that where I've come across them and just feel like, oh, I don't like it and so I certainly don't want to support it. But I think you can directly challenge people and most leaders. I think they do want to be kind, but in a lot of ways they don't know how to as a leader. So sales, I think, is a good example where sales leaders have kind of been conditioned through what that career progression looks like. But you absolutely have to treat people as if they are wallets to take money out of.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying this is universally true, but I think there's a good, accurate use case where it's like you do not think about the actual personal impact of something that you're having. If you're increasing your numbers, you are being a good salesperson and it therefore takes a brave salesperson who says, oh, actually, this person doesn't really need what I'm selling them, so it's going to hurt my numbers, but it is the kind thing to do and brave. You know it's a brave thing to do, to do this right thing. But it is the sort of thing that in 10 years' time you look back on and go. Yeah, I'm glad that I did that. You don't look back in pride on having hit sales numbers as a general rule, but you do look back in pride on going. I really stuck up my principles there. So that's what it all comes back to, really, I suppose.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then there's the perception when you think of sales, the perception of somebody who says, oh, you're in sales and then automatically they're thinking the negative piece of that. I've had that happen instead of you know, as you're speaking about it, it's very different.

Speaker 2:

It's such an easy thing to bash, isn't it? When the reality is, you know, we operate in an environment, in an economic environment, in which sales is an extremely valuable role in the right context. But you can do it right, you can do it well or poorly, and I run a business. I need to sell in order for the business to remain commercially sustainable.

Speaker 2:

I pay the bills, my house bills. I've got a family of six living in London. I need to be able to earn money, so sales is a really important process. But there are ways of doing that, where I had somebody who contacted me recently and they were feeling very cross because they had bought something on my website and then they hadn't taken advantage of it because they had forgotten, and and they were cross that they had spent this. And so they sent me a very angry email explaining why they wish that they had never bought it and that they hope that my business fails. And so I sent them an email apologizing that they hadn't taken advantage of it and that they hope that my business fails. And so I sent them an email apologizing that they hadn't taken advantage of it and offering them a full refund. And they they're my best friend now because you know they were expecting me to be this uh, you know this demon who's only out.

Speaker 2:

You know the only purpose of my website is to make money. Right out of some sort of selfish ambition of saying that I've done it, I say, oh, if you don't have your money back, I don't. I don't want to make money for the sake of making people cross? No, that's the exact opposite, and so I think. But but you know, I think a lot of organizations are potentially set up where that's the case and I certainly I've had experiences of calling up organizations and saying you've taken this extra payment. I didn't even know that was coming out when I had my money back and then just saying no, too late. It's written in paragraph 74 CII in terms and conditions that we're going to do this. But you've got to be reasonable. Surely you know, isn't this a nice? Isn't this the right thing to do this? We think, but you've got to be reasonable. Surely you know? Isn't this a nice? Isn't this the right thing to do? That's right they're not.

Speaker 2:

It isn't important to the people who've created that setup to do the right thing. It's only important to make money some. I just don't get it. So no, I want, uh, I want leaders to sort of catch on to that vision, because then they're the ones who are able to have the impact.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Indeed. Well, we're going to turn our talk to technology. We're going to talk a little bit about that because the pace of technology is impacting the role of leadership. So what does good leadership look like in 2025, when we're thinking about technology and all that's within organizations, or whether they are 100% on board with a lot that's coming down the pike, or whether they are just kind of tiptoeing in? What does it look like for leadership, leadership?

Speaker 2:

well, I think it's really interesting. When you look at the development of technology and the evolution of leadership over the last couple of hundred years, particularly thinking about the industrial revolution, and you know where we've gone to now with the emergence of generative ai, you can track the sort of leadership traits that are seen as desirable alongside the technology. So this piece of technology comes in and therefore we respond by adopting a leadership style that is more suitable, based on that tech. So the easy example to point to is you look back into the middle ages. What does a business look like? It basically looks like this is my family, my house. You know, my business is operating in my house. That's basically what it is, and so everybody in your organization are the people that you're living with.

Speaker 2:

Oh, industrial revolution comes along. We start to use machines and we start to then see organizations as machines as well and the humans are just cogs to fit in and out of the machines. If someone gets hurt in the cotton mill and can't work, you just find somebody else to plug into that spot to keep the machine. The machine's got to keep on working, sort of thing. There are changes in the way that the leaders think. Over the 20th century, we've seen, of course, computing emerge and artificial intelligence coming out of that. Generative artificial intelligence is the most recent iteration of that. You can see the impact on leadership with the second half of the 20th century, with the way that computing has gone, where concepts like data-driven decision-making is because machines run on data and therefore leaders sort of adopt this as well. If the data says that this is true, therefore this is the right decision to make and so there's a move away from, as you were saying before, the experience of me as a human. This is just feeling like the wrong thing, whereas I look back to my idea of what a blacksmith looks like in the Middle Ages and think, if the lord of the manor comes around and says, how much is it going to cost me to for you to do a really nice sword for me or whatever? There's parts for you that feels like well, the fact that I have been asked to do such an honorable task, let's just. Let's just make it work, shall we? You know, something that works for you works for me. I'm going to be proud to have said that I've done that work. But you know, plug that into a big insurance system now and it's just, this is the rate and that's it's right, as a leader, to sort of do that sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

The emergence of most recent sort of technology, the impactful sort that we've seen in the last couple of years through large language models in particular not limited to that, but particularly that makes me think that the role of leadership in the near-term future is predominantly going to be around governance of creativity, where over recent years, creativity has kind of been something that you almost you don't outsource it.

Speaker 2:

Insource it, you know there's a team and you're the creative people, and then we've got the accountants and lawyers who are going to be sort of keeping us within guardrails. Well, actually, a lot of that sort of role you can use ai to accelerate, increase the scale of, increase the impact of. So, as a leader, that ability needs to sort of form part of your portfolio and just, yeah, it's not good enough just to be able to make a clear decision and communicate it. It's it's around freeing up resource to be able to make creative, innovative decisions. That's what I think is going to be the leadership that shapes at least the near term. But there's a lot more technology coming that is going to be the leadership that shapes at least the near term. But there's a lot more technology coming that is going to absolutely undo all of that and we're going to have to reframe it again.

Speaker 1:

You know, exciting time to be alive most definitely an exciting time to be alive, and my, my thinking is so how you know leaders coming in to, whether they have been longstanding leaders and now, all of a sudden and maybe it's not so all of a sudden because they've been using different types of technology and whatnot but what might leaders need to learn in order to be in these roles? Now, when I think about leadership has changed so much, and will we be just having the same leaders coming in, or will organizations be looking for leaders with different things on their resume now that align more with technology?

Speaker 2:

I think it would be very difficult to operate a genuinely sustainable organization and not understand the concept of generative AI, because somebody who does understand it is going to come along and just disrupt you. It is possible now. This morning uh, it's afternoon in london, where I am now um, this morning I went into a local school and talked to about 13 14 year olds about you know what does the future look like? Just a quick point of reference. They didn't know what a pop star was. I, I used the phrase pop star and the first question I was asked was what do you mean? Is the pop star?

Speaker 2:

they call it my age. Um, sorry, completely derailed myself there, um, but as I go, these are people who are growing up where generative ai is just a thing by the time that they hit the workplace. To not be able to use generative AI is going to be ludicrous. It's like not knowing how to switch on a PC. It's just part of the experience. So one of those people quite possibly could just come up with an idea in their bedroom and quickly spin up a server online, chuck some AI model into there and get the business operating. I don't know how to do such and such, no worries, I'll just create a consultant, an AI consultant, who will tell me how to do that, and then I can get some advice and I can just make this happen, and so you could create an organization that could disrupt any sort of industry. Ai is one particular example of that and, and of course, it's got lots of capabilities and so something like that could disrupt any organization. So if you're there running, you know a car manufacturer and you think, oh, ai, that's not for us, you know, that's for a different sort of environment, well, you know, you might as well. Just it's a ticking time bomb, he's just all it is a question of you know when is this going to get disrupted? Not if, um, so yeah, I suppose in. In short answer to your question, I think leaders do need to know about technology.

Speaker 2:

However, I, my desire is that it is more than that that you know that you're a human at the same time, that it isn't a pure pursuit of building a business just for the sake of it. I think that's what there's a risk that we end up with these blinkers on and you hear people saying at conferences my passion is this really tight niche where you think, no, it isn't, that's not, it's not at all. You know your passion is not seeing organisations increase the bottom line by 10%. That is not your passion. Stop saying that it is.

Speaker 2:

I don't know who you're trying to kid. Your passion is much more likely watching football. That's what really gets you excited. If you do one thing, that's probably much more likely. You might be intellectually stimulated by some things and you might have got good experience in a certain area. But let's not, let's not kind of kid ourselves that we've got these blinkered view like yes, widen our view to be able to discover that the world is so much bigger than we realize that it is, and technology is an important part of that because it is changing so rapidly. I've got a good few years left in me and by the time that I retire, the technology that I'm using now, that I think is really cool, is going to be so far out of date.

Speaker 1:

So we kind of need to just keep up with the times, be open-minded and curious. Yeah, leaders need to be that and not to be so staunch. Especially, I think of you know I'm the tail end of the baby boomers and so you know a lot of. You know my friends and colleagues in the same generation. It's like you know we're still working, you know we're still working. But I think that there's also some people who are baby boomers who are exiting the workforce and they're glad. They don't want to learn anything more. Now I'm different. I want to learn and because I think it's fun, I'm a learner.

Speaker 1:

But I do think that there are some people who will just say I just don't want to keep up. Technology is just moving too fast and that's okay. But I love the younger generations, how they are really gravitating and when I think of my grandchildren, that's all they know. All they know is technology. I mean, from my little one and a half year, almost two year old, with know, with FaceTime, with grandma, you know that that's what he knows. He knows to pick up that phone, he knows how to disconnect it's. It's just amazing to me. And so to think about you know the, that generation, my grandchildren, and what they're going to be doing. When they're my age it's like it blows my mind the could-bes and what our world is going to look like. But it all goes back to what you're saying around the humanness that will never go away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I think about it. I'm a coach and so I operate in the coaching profession a lot and I think about what's the impact of this particular technology on coaching and AI is a massive one, because you can automate a coaching conversation and you know AI can do a pretty good job of it actually probably does a better job than a lot of.