Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Hosted by Maureen Metcalf

Conversations with global thought leaders on leadership, culture, and innovation—designed for executives navigating complexity and building resilient organizations.

The Dance Between Leadership & Followership

Episode Description

Margaret Heffernan and Ira Chaleff make the case that leadership and followership must evolve together now that turbulence and uncertainty are chronic conditions. Heffernan focuses on building organizations that thrive in turbulence, offering six steps toward resilience. Chaleff turns to the quality of followership, introducing “intelligent disobedience,” the courageous choice to collaborate with leaders rather than blindly comply. Together they frame influence as multidirectional, flowing not just from leaders to followers but from the front line back to the back office.

Key Takeaways

Leadership and followership must evolve together as turbulence becomes a chronic condition.
Great leadership depends on great followership, not just strong leaders.
Intelligent disobedience means followers courageously collaborating rather than blindly complying.
Influence is multidirectional, flowing from leaders to followers and from the front line upward.
Building organizations that thrive in turbulence requires deliberate steps toward resilience.

Why This Episode Matters

Executives come away understanding that resilient organizations depend on the interplay between strong leadership and courageous followership, with influence flowing in every direction.

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Featuring

Margaret Heffernan & Ira Chaleff

Episode Topics

Culture Change • Decision Rights & Governance • Leadership Capability & Maturity

Podcast Air Date

February 27, 2018

Episode Duration

45min

Watch the episode

Season 4

Episode Number 9

Episode Content:

What we need from leaders today is vastly different than even a decade ago. That change began years ago; the pandemic merely accelerated it. The reason is simple: turbulence and uncertainty are now chronic conditions. Now, guest Margaret Heffernan says, leadership is about building organizations that thrive in turbulence. She shares six steps to make that happen.

Then, Ira Chaleff switches the perspective to your followers. After all, the best leadership requires the best followership. Influence is not unidirectional from leader to follower; it bounces back from the front line to the back office, too. Ira reveals how followers act with courage to collaborate with leaders — and shares the counterintuitive idea of intelligent disobedience.

Produced in partnership with the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together with Margaret Heffernan
Courageous Followership with Neil Grunberg & Ira Chaleff
Non-Traditional Leadership Models for Our New Era with Nathan Eva & Nicole Ferry

Resources:

Ira is a prolific writer. His books include The Courageous Follower, Intelligent Disobedience, The Limits of Violence (with Elan Le Vieux), The Art of Followership, and Setting Course: A Congressional Management Guide. Information on Ira’s consulting firm is at https://exe-coach.com; his own website is https://IraChaleff.com.

Margaret has many books as well, including Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Own Peril, Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future, and Women on Top: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Rewriting the Rules of Business Success. You can also see her in several TED Talks.

Our host, Maureen Metcalf, posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
- Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
- Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy

The Leadership Strength You Have (But Aren’t Using) with Christopher and Sheila Cooke
Reciprocity: Why Giving Creates Better Teams with Brian Ahearn
The Next Rules of Work with Gary A. Bolles

Guest(s):

Margaret Heffernan & Ira Chaleff

Guest(s) Bio:

Ira Chaleff is an author, speaker, and innovative thinker. His latest work, Intelligent Disobedience, is now available on Amazon. He is founder and president of Executive Coaching and Consulting Associates. As a coach, Ira provides a stimulating and safe environment for executives and their teams to examine, evaluate and significantly improve their management styles, skills and processes. Through targeted interviews, work-climate surveys, and multi-viewpoint feedback instruments, he involves all those who have a stake in the change process, analyzes their input and provides frank, constructive feedback sessions.

Margaret Heffernan is the author of the best-selling UNCHARTED: How to Map the Future Together, nominated for a Financial Times Best Business Book award. She is a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath, Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She is the author of six books, and her TED talks have been seen by over twelve million people.

Transcript