PODCAST · business
David Burkus Presents
by David Burkus
Helping leaders and teams do their best work ever. David Burkus is one of the world’s leading business thinkers and the author of four best-selling books about business and leadership. Episodes of the show include insights, strategies, tips and takeaways from David as well as in-depth conversations with other world renown experts to contribute ideas, opinions, and insights to help you level of your own leadership.
Episodes
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Why Tesla's Robot Factory Failed — And What It Means For AI Replacing Jobs
In 2017, Tesla set out to build a car factory so automated that people would barely be needed. The target was five thousand Model 3s a week. Across the entire third quarter, the line produced 260 cars. It remains the best-documented attempt we have at replacing people with machines at scale…
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AI Can't Do All The Managers' Work
AI might make management more efficient. But efficiency isn’t the same thing as leadership. In this video, I break down four parts of management I would never delegate to AI and why keeping them human matters more as artificial intelligence becomes embedded in the workplace. AI can summarize...
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How To Get A New Team To Work Together Fast
New team collaboration breaks for a reason that looks like something else. You inherited a team, or built one, or a reorg assembled one for you, and on paper it's the kind of group you'd point to in a leadership meeting. Six weeks in, the work is slower than it was when everyone was working…
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9 Apologies Every Leader Will Have To Make
Making mistakes is part of leadership. Knowing how to own them and apologize for them is a leadership skill most people never learn. In this video, I break down nine (yes, nine!) apologies every leader will eventually have to make. From owning a bad decision or broken promise to apologizing for…
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The Best Leaders Aren't More Efficient, They're More Human with Caroline Webb
The obvious response to AI eating more of the workday is to get more efficient — learn the tools, move faster, automate what you can. Caroline Webb, who's spent twenty-five years coaching leaders using cognitive and behavioral science, argues something closer to the opposite: the tasks AI still...
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Leading After A Layoff
The people who lost their jobs are gone but that doesn’t mean the layoff is over for the people who stayed. Research shows that employees who survive layoffs often experience anxiety, guilt, lower morale, reduced productivity, and a loss of trust in leadership. And trying to rush everyone back to...
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Why Pixar Deleted Toy Story 2 Twice
In 1998, Pixar lost two months of Toy Story 2 to a stray delete command. A dozen people gave up a weekend to claw it back. Ten weeks later, four colleagues watched what they'd rescued and threw away more of it than the computer had. The interesting part isn't the accident. It's that the verdict...
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Netflix Learned The Cost Of Silence
What happens when everyone on your team thinks the boss is wrong...but nobody says anything? That’s exactly what happened at Netflix. In 2011, co-founder Reed Hastings made a decision that cost the company customers, millions of dollars, and a massive drop in stock price. The surprising part?...
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Why Companies Get Worse As They Grow
Does it feel like every business has gotten worse? Longer hold times, endless bureaucracy, frustrating customer service, and workplaces buried under layers of process. In this video, I explore why so many organizations feel broken—and why the problem isn't lazy employees or bad leaders. It's the...
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Protect Your Team From Toxic Leaders
If you're managing under a toxic or chaotic senior leader, your job is more than just keeping projects on track. It's protecting your team. In this video, I share practical leadership strategies for managing up, shielding your team from unnecessary chaos, and building a healthy team culture even...
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The Real Challenge of Managing Freelancers
A lot of leadership advice assumes everyone on your team actually works for you, but modern teams are often blended teams, full-time employees, freelancers, contractors, consultants, and fractional leaders all trying to move work forward with different schedules, incentives, and priorities. That...
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The Real Reason Your Team Procrastinates
Is your team always waiting until the last minute...all the time? You'd be surprised. It’s not about laziness. It's usually about stress, unclear expectations, vague milestones, and bottlenecks leaders don’t always see. Now, don't you procrastinate here, I'm here to help! In this video, I’ll show...
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You Have More Time Than You Think with Laura Vanderkam
Most leaders treat time management like a logistics problem. Not enough hours. Too many demands. A calendar that's already full before Monday starts. So they grind harder—and still feel behind. Laura Vanderkam has spent two decades studying how people actually spend their time, and her research...
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What To Consider When Considering A Career Change
Does something feel off at your job? The Sunday scaries creeping in harder and harder? Jealously bubbling up from other people’s work at other places? Or are simply bored? Well, it might be time for a career change. Before you make the leap to possibly brighter pastures that promise purpose and...
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Are You Being Managed Out?
If you’ve ever felt the “vibe shift” at work, fewer responsibilities, less communication, and more criticism...you may be getting managed out. No one wants to be in this situation. And if that sounds like you, I'm here to help. In this episode, I break down the subtle signs your boss or...
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The Reason Your AI Rollout Isn't Working with Charlene Li
Most organizations are treating AI like a software upgrade. Buy the licenses, hand it to IT, measure adoption rates, call it a transformation. It isn't. Charlene Li has spent the last several years inside organizations actually leading AI transformation — not just talking about it — and her...
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The Perfectionism Trap That's Slowing Your Team Down
Perfectionism feels like a strength, but it’s often the very thing slowing you down. In this video, we break down the hidden costs of perfectionism and how it quietly sabotages productivity, decision-making, and team performance. Drawing on research and real-world examples, you’ll learn the...
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Get Promoted (Without Office Politics)
Want to get promoted and land the high-profile projects? Just doing great work isn't enough. You need a strong internal reputation that speaks for you even when you're not in the room. In this video, I'm breaking down five proven strategies to build your workplace reputation without playing...
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The 5 Forces That Unlock Creative Collaboration with Josh Linkner
Most leaders think creativity belongs to a handful of people on their team—the ones in marketing, R&D, or the corner office with the whiteboard. Everyone else executes. And that assumption, more than any lack of talent, is what's quietly killing your team's best ideas before they ever surface.…
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How to Bounce Back from a Failure at Work
Failure at work isn’t the problem, it's how leaders respond to it is. In this video, I break down how great leaders turn mistakes into momentum by building trust, reinforcing psychological safety, and creating a culture where teams actually learn. You’ll learn a simple, practical framework:...
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How to Lead Without a Title
Most people think leadership comes with a title. A promotion. A team. But in reality, leadership starts long before any of that...and often without it. In this video, we’re unpacking what it really means to lead without formal authority. Because stepping up without the title isn’t just a career...
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Managing A Toxic High-Performer
You’ve probably worked with someone like this: they hit every deadline, their numbers look great, and leadership sees them as a star performer. But ask the rest of the team, and you’ll hear a...very...different story. In this episode, I tackle a challenge almost every leader faces: how to handle…
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How Great Teams Create Meaning with Daniel Coyle
Most leaders are searching for the formula. The right strategy, the right talent, the right incentive structure. And when teams underperform, they add more—more process, more accountability, more pressure. What they almost never do is pause. In his new book Flourish, Daniel Coyle spent five years...
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Introverts Can Make Better Leaders. Here's Why.
We tend to picture leaders as bold, charismatic extroverts. The loudest voice in the room. But that stereotype is costing organizations great talent. In this video, I break down the research on introverted leaders and why quiet, thoughtful professionals often make some of the most effective...
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The Science of High Performance with James Hewitt
Most leaders think high performance is a simple equation: more hours, more hustle, more grit. And in a short-term crisis, that approach can even look like it’s working—war rooms, late nights, and relentless pressure that “proves” productivity. But sustained high performance doesn’t come from...
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Fix Your Focus at Work (And Get More Done)
Are all your productivity tools actually making you...less productive? The average knowledge worker toggles between platforms 1,200 times a day. That’s four hours lost just reorienting your brain. Email, Slack, project tools, shared docs… they were supposed to help us, not hijack our focus. In…
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How To Delegate Without Losing Control
If you're struggling to delegate as a manager, it's time to fix that. Have no fear. In this video, I break down the most common mistakes managers make when delegating and then I’ll give you strategies to delegate in a way that actually builds high-performing, autonomous teams. We’ll talk about…
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How To Be More Productive
We all make the same promise, sometimes more than once: "This time, I’ll be more productive.” But most productivity goals fail, not because we lack motivation, but because we’re managing the wrong thing. Based on powerful research, we’ll uncover how your natural energy rhythms can unlock your…
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2026 Predictions For Leaders
2025 was a noisy year. Quiet quitting, quiet firing, corporate catfishing? Yeah, we heard it all. But as we head into 2026, smart leaders aren’t chasing headlines, they’re looking for the signal in the noise. I break down the workplace trends that actually matter and how to lead your team through...
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How To Pitch An Idea
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast You’ve got a great idea. A new workflow. A game-changing tool. A better way to run meetings. You bring it to your manager…and get hit with “let’s stick with what we...
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AI & Creativity
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast AI can boost creativity, but is it killing collaboration? It'a true, tools like ChatGPT can help and also hurt your team's ability to innovate together. I’ll walk you...
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Goal-Setting That Actually Works
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Most leaders know goal setting matters, but most are doing it wrong. I’ll break down the common mistakes leaders make when setting goals and how they unknowingly...
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Let's Fix Corporate Jargon in the Workplace
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Ever sit through a meeting where someone says, “Let’s circle back and align our KPIs”—and everyone just nods, while you're silently wondering what on earth that even...
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What Leaders Get Wrong About Emotional Intelligence
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast In today’s hybrid world, where the lines between work and life are blurrier than ever, leaders can’t afford to ignore how emotions shape performance for themselves and...
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How To Lead High-Performers On Your Team
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Every team needs A-Players. But spotting and supporting your high performers isn’t just nice to do, it’s essential leadership. In this episode, I’ll show you how to…
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14 Life-Changing Books On Leadership
There's a stack of leadership books I continue to draw from all the time that not only shape how I think, but some that have really changed my mind in the past. They've influenced me in numerous way including when I wrote my book, "Best Team Ever." Chapters: 00:32 The Opposable Mind by Roger…
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How to Manage a Cross-Functional Team (and Not Fall Back Into Silos)
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/youtube You’ve just been asked to lead a team…but it’s not really your team. It’s a mix of folks from different departments. Marketing. Sales. Legal. Each bringing their own...
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Managing Your Friends Without Losing Them
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Can you keep your work friends now that you're the new boss? Now that you’re leading the same people you used to grab happy hour with…it's awkward, right? Don’t worry,...
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The Secret to Getting Change to Stick
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast You poured time, energy, and passion into your new initiative…only to find it quietly fizzling out weeks later. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. The truth is, getting...
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How To Lead A Global, Multicultural Team
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Leading a multicultural or global team isn’t just about managing projects—it’s about managing people who see the world differently. Most leadership advice is built on...
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AI Isn’t a Tool, It’s Your Next Teammate (And Here’s How to Use It)
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast This isn’t just another tech rollout. It’s a mindset shift. I’ll show you how to move beyond seeing AI as a threat or just a productivity tool, and instead see it for...
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Leading Your Team Through Change and Uncertainty
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Don't let silence speak for you. When a crisis hits, the instinct for most leaders is to project strength—to act like they’ve got it all figured out. But the truth is,...
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What to Do With the B Players On Your Team
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast We need to talk about the B players on your team. No, not the rockstar A players. I'm breaking down why B players matter more than you think, and how to lead them…
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Manage Up to These 3 Types of Bad Bosses
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast So…you don’t trust your boss anymore. Maybe it’s the broken promises. Maybe it’s the constant micromanaging. Maybe it’s just the feeling you’re on different teams…
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Is It a Mistake…or a Betrayal? How Great Leaders Rebuild Trust
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Someone on your team let you down—and now trust is broken. What happens next is critical. In this video, I’ll walk you through how to respond when trust is violated at...
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Build Trust As A New Leader
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast If you're stepping into a new leadership role and wondering, "How do I build trust with a team I just inherited?"—you’re not alone. Most leaders know trust is…
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How To Rebuild Trust On A Team (When It's Your Fault)
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Most leaders think a simple “I’m sorry” is enough to repair broken trust. But you know that's not really enough. Real trust isn’t rebuilt with words—it’s rebuilt with...
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How Trust Empowers Your Team
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Most leaders know trust matters. But when it comes to actually building it on a team, too many well-intentioned leaders fall into the trap of personality tests, trust...
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Does Hiring For "Culture Fit" Work?
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Hiring for “culture fit” sounds great in theory. You want people who vibe with the team, align with the mission, and are just easy to work with. But in practice? It’s...
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How to Manage Across Generations (Gen Z + Boomers)
Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast Are generational clashes at work really as big of a deal as people make them out to be? We’ve all heard the stereotypes—Millennials got participation trophies, Gen Z…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Helping leaders and teams do their best work ever. David Burkus is one of the world’s leading business thinkers and the author of four best-selling books about business and leadership. Episodes of the show include insights, strategies, tips and takeaways from David as well as in-depth conversations with other world renown experts to contribute ideas, opinions, and insights to help you level of your own leadership.
HOSTED BY
David Burkus
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does David Burkus Presents have?
David Burkus Presents currently has 164 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is David Burkus Presents about?
Helping leaders and teams do their best work ever. David Burkus is one of the world’s leading business thinkers and the author of four best-selling books about business and leadership. Episodes of the show include insights, strategies, tips and takeaways from David as well as in-depth conversations...
How often does David Burkus Presents release new episodes?
David Burkus Presents publishes regularly with 164 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to David Burkus Presents?
You can listen to David Burkus Presents on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts David Burkus Presents?
David Burkus Presents is created and hosted by David Burkus.
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