About this episode

This episode discusses the importance of humility in leadership with insights from Ken Roberts and Jamie Ramsden.

What separates a great leader from a merely competent one? According to Ken Roberts, President of Atlas Roofing (and a 30 year veteran of Masco Corporation), and executive coach Jamie Ramsden, the answer isn't intelligence, charisma, or having all the answers. It's humility . In this episode of A Podcast About Leadership, host Jonathan Kirschner sits down with Ken Roberts , president of one of North America's leading building materials manufacturers, and CEO coach Jamie Ramsden , author of Let's Go: How Great Leaders Shape the Future, to talk about why humility is the leadership skill most executives overlook, and why it's so often mistaken for weakness. Ken shares the story of the hardest decision of his career: a gut call made during the COVID supply chain crisis with zero hard data behind it. That moment taught him a lesson that's stuck with him ever since. If you're the smartest person in the room, you probably haven't built a great team. Ken and Jamie get into: Why real humility means staying open to being wrong, not staying quiet The difference between delegation and abdication How to avoid getting pulled into "triangulation" and build genuinely collaborative…

People in this episode

Host: Jonathan Kirschner

Guests: Ken Roberts, Jamie Ramsden

Topics covered

• leadership
• humility
• decision making
• team building
• self-awareness
• collaboration

Keywords

• leadership skills
• humility
• executive coaching
• decision making
• team collaboration
• self-awareness
• energy management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Atlas Roofing, Masco Corporation

Books & works: Let's Go: How Great Leaders Shape the Future

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• From Have-To to Want-To: What 50+ Years of Leadership Looks Like with Peter Arthur Smith · June 18, 2026 · 1h 11m
• TOPGUN Leadership: Lessons from Naval Aviation's Elite · June 4, 2026 · 1h 10m
• Bricks, Culture & The Building Blocks of Leadership with Brickworks' Steve Bell & Jamie Ramsden · May 21, 2026 · 1h 8m
• When Culture Is the Strategy: Lessons from Elite Leaders in HR · May 5, 2026 · 1h 4m

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