In Session: Leading the Judiciary

Leaders shape the environments where wellbeing, connection, and performance take root. In Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives, Drs. Patricia Grabarek and Katina Sawyer show how everyday leadership behaviors directly influence employee retention, satisfaction, and overall health. Their research offers a science backed roadmap and practical insights for leading a workplace where employees can flourish. Dr. Patricia Grabarek brings more than a decade of experience improving workplace wellness, culture, and engagement across over 60 organizations. Her evidenced-driven work has strengthened performance and retention, earning recognition as one of Culture Amp’s Top 25 Emerging Culture Creators. Dr. Katina Sawyer, an award-winning researcher and Associate Professor at the University of Arizona, has shaped global conversations on work–life balance, leadership, and positive organizational behavior through more than 50 publications and features in outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology and Harvard Business Review.

AI, hybrid models, and generational shifts in work cause many to ask: Why are we here? In her latest book, Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants, Jennifer Moss offers leaders a research-driven, human-centered roadmap for promoting purpose, belonging, and resiliency in the workplace. Her writing has shaped global conversations and she is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review. She was named Canadian Business Innovator of the Year, International Female Entrepreneur of the Year and is a recognized thought leader in workplace well-being.

Steven Rogelberg, author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, shares research on the importance of effective one-to-one meetings for employees, leaders and organizations. He shares how to effectively conduct these meetings for maximum impact. He also argues that while many leaders rate themselves as being very effective at conducting one-to-one meetings, many employees feel these same meetings as ineffective. Dr. Rogelberg is a pioneering scholar in organizational science, management, and psychology, with over 150 publications spanning leadership, team dynamics, employee well-being, and the science of meetings. He is a Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte where he is the founding Director of Organizational Science. He serves as the editor of the Journal of Business and Psychology, and is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Raymond A. Katzell Award an

Dr. Elias Aboujaoude's research shows that leaders emerge from unpredictable personal, psychological and situational factors. His latest book, A Leader’s Destiny: Why Psychology, Personality, and Character Make All the Difference, cautions against relying on the often-marketed simplistic concepts of leadership and recommends organizations instead focus on the inherent psychological characteristics leaders need to be successful. Dr. Aboujaoude is a Clinical Professor, researcher and writer at Stanford University's Department of Psychiatry. He is the Chief of the Anxiety Disorders Section and Director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic. His work has been featured in publications to include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and on BBC, PBS, and CNN.

Effective leaders tell the right stories in the right way. Karen Eber, author of The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories That Inform, Influence, and Inspire, explains how to capitalize on the brain’s five factory settings to tell stories that harness emotion to make decisions, build trust, and develop consensus around ideas, strategy, and organizational culture. Karen Eber is CEO and Chief Storyteller of Eber Leadership Group and has helped organizations like GE, Deloitte, and HP create healthy, empathic, and curious leaders, teams, and cultures through intentional storytelling. Karen is an award-winning author, global consultant, and keynote speaker. She has been featured in publications such as Fast Company and Forbes, and can also be found on the TED Talk stage.

Research shows that heart-centered curiosity differs from intellectual curiosity and leads to a better understanding of ourselves and others, and to happier and more productive organizations. Scott Shigeoka’s book Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World, based on his work at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, provides strategies for developing curiosity and explains why it is important to do so. Scott has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California Berkeley, and currently teaches courses on innovative design at the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Peter H. Kim, researcher in the field of trust and author of How Trust Works: The Science of How Relationships Are Built, Broken and Repaired, shares surprising evidence-based insights about trust and trust violations. He describes how efforts to repair trust, such as apologies, can be ineffective or even harm relationships. Dr. Peter H. Kim is a professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and is a recipient of numerous international and international awards. His research has been published in a number of scholarly journals, and featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post and on National Public Radio.

Helene Creager (C.D. Cal.), informed by her time as central California’s Critical Incident Stress Management Team, shares not only what officers need to know about the science behind mindfulness, compassion, self-compassion, and positive neuroplasticity, but how to incorporate them into our daily lives as well. Drawing upon her twenty-three years as a U.S. Probation officer, including as a founding member of the National Wellness Working Group, Creager makes the case that intentional self-care is crucial in creating satisfying personal and professional lives.

Today on In Session: Leading the Judiciary, Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering, shares a purpose-driven and people-centered approach for designing meaningful, and memorable meetings that people want to attend. Parker is a facilitator and strategic advisor trained in the field of conflict resolution and has spent 20 years guiding leaders and groups through difficult conversations about community, identity, and vision. She studied organizational design at M.I.T., public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and political and social thought at the University of Virginia.

Woo-kyoung Ahn, professor of psychology at Yale University and author of Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better, discusses how our brains are hard-wired to make quick decisions in order to keep us safe. These cognitive shortcuts can lead to misguided decision-making and stifled innovation in the short-term while costing us time, energy and money in the long run. Ahn received Yale’s Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences in 2022, and her research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.

Today on In Session: Leading the Judiciary, we talk with public policy expert Bobby Duffy about his book The Generation Myth: Why When You’re Born Matters Less Than You Think. Duffy discusses what’s real and not-so-real about differences among generations. Stereotypes like “Baby Boomers hate technology” and “Millennials are lazy” not only lack support but can be dangerous: creating division and distracting from real issues. Duffy argues that to understand how different generations shape society, it’s essential to consider the political, economic, and cultural contexts impacting everyone, and the lifecycle changes common to all generations. Bobby Duffy is professor of public policy and director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, and was previously director of global research at Ipsos MORI and the Ipsos Social Research Institute. His first book, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything, published in 2019, examined the causes and consequences of human delusion.

In part two of our discussion with author Dolly Chugh, we discuss how unconscious bias reveals itself in non-verbal ways, signaling feelings and beliefs we don’t intend to convey. Dr. Dolly Chugh, author of The Person You Mean to Be, How Good People Fight Bias, says this “leakage” often occurs during times of stress and in fast-moving environments. Dolly says taking the time to consider influential aspects of our own and others’ identities and acting with intention can help us to consistently convey who we mean to be. Part one, Good-ish to Great: How the Best Leaders Continue to Grow, was released October 11, 2022.

David Robson, author of the The Expectation Effect, How Your Mindset Can Change Your World, explains the science behind how what we think will happen changes what does happen. Leaders who understand and leverage the mind-body connection can enhance their own and others’ focus and increase engagement and workplace performance. David Robson graduated from Cambridge University and is a science writer featured in publications like the Atlantic and the Washington Post. In 2021 he received awards from the Association of British Science Writers and the UK Medical Journalists' Association for his writing on misinformation and risk communication during the COVID pandemic. Robson edited for New Scientist and was a senior writer for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He is also the author of The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes, released in 2019.