Your Preshift

This week on Your Preshift, Ryan explores one of the hardest parts of leadership: walking into a team you didn’t build. Whether you're taking over a restaurant, a department, a school, or a shift, the pressure to prove yourself can push you into changing things before you understand them. Ryan unpacks why organizations are more like archaeological sites than blank slates, how old processes often carry the scars of past successes and failures, and why the smartest thing a new leader can do is listen before they lead. Sometimes the most important work in your first 100 days is figuring out why the fence was built before you decide to tear it down.

This week, Ryan explores what happens when AI makes everything look polished, but not everything is actually well thought out. Through stories from the workplace, the luxury industry, and a simple paper airplane, he argues that the real value of leadership is found in the messy middle, the questioning, judgment, and decision-making that AI can't replace.The episode offers practical ways to pressure-test AI-generated work and serves as a reminder that while technology can assist the work, leaders still have to do the thinking.References: https://impact.economist.com/technology-innovation/enterprise-ai-in-action/rewiring-the-maisonhttps://www.instagram.com/kevinboxstudio/?hl=en

We're rewinding a classic for the AI era: In this kickoff to the Lead Like a Gardener series, we explore why so many leaders default to pressure, control, and quick fixes, especially in fast-paced environments. Drawing on the contrast between mechanic-style leadership and gardener-style leadership, this episode unpacks how true growth doesn’t come from tightening bolts, but from tending to the soil people grow in. If you’ve ever felt like you're the only one driving results, or like you’re stuck being the fixer instead of the leader, this conversation is for you.Because even in an AI-first world, you still get to choose how you lead.

In the age of AI, Ryan argues that frontline leadership is splitting into two distinct classes. On one side is the Receiver, the leader who treats new tech as a set of instructions to follow, often using AI to solve symptoms while ignoring the real problems. On the other is the Creator, who uses the tools in their pocket to hunt down root causes and redesign the system itself.In this episode, Ryan's differentiates each type of leader and dives into why nearly 45% of AI initiatives fail due to frontline exclusion and how you can take the reins of your own leadership. We’ll discuss how to stop waiting for corporate permission and start using the organization in your pocket to move from merely managing the business to leading it.Reference LinksNew Study from PwC, MI Finds Frontline Leaders Play a Key Role in Manufacturing AI AdoptionOrganizational Learning - Single and Double Loop

Familiarity sets in faster than most of us realize, and when it does, leadership effort drops. Expectations go unstated, involvement fades, and leaders start leading from old assumptions instead of present reality.Nothing is wrong. Performance often looks fine. But development stalls.In this episode, Ryan helps leaders spot when they’re on autopilot with people they know well, understand why trust without attention creates distance, and learn how to reopen familiar relationships with clarity, presence, and intention.

Leadership doesn’t stop working because people get worse. It stops working because the approach stops fitting.This episode challenges the idea that great leaders have a single leadership “style.” Instead, it makes the case that effective leadership adjusts as people grow and the work changes. When leaders stay fixed: friction and frustration follow.Using Trust, Structure, and Involvement alongside a healthy take on the 9-box, this episode helps leaders see where someone is right now and make small, intentional adjustments instead of reactive swings.If leadership has been feeling tougher than it should, this episode explains why, and shows how to realign without lowering standards or starting over.

People development has become an industry. Programs, trainings, certifications, and frameworks promise growth, but most leaders don’t struggle with knowledge. They struggle with application. They’re leading real people, in real roles, under real pressure, where growth isn’t clean, linear, or predictable.In this opening episode of Leading Over Time, we talk about how development is relational. Over time, people become more like the leaders who lead them, not because of formal training, but because of proximity, observation, and repeated interaction. How you show up shapes how others think, decide, and grow.This episode explores why developing people in real life is so difficult, even for good leaders. Growth is uneven. Life doesn’t pause. Confidence, ownership, and capability fluctuate. And most leadership systems focus on evaluating people instead of helping leaders adapt their approach as individuals and situations change.Leading Over Time is about closing that gap. Instead of asking only “Where is this person?”, the series shifts the focus to a more useful question: “How should I be showing up now?” It’s about moving from static assessments to leadership that adjusts over time, responding to growth, pressure, and change with greater clarity and intention.This episode invites you to bring one real person, one real situation, and one real development question with you as the series unfolds. Not to fix anyone, but to lead more intentionally, one shift at a time.