#102: Why Emotional Intelligence Isn't About Being Nice
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
Release Date: 05/13/2026
#117: The Power of Questions
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #117 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Chris Foy to explore the power of questions and why strong leadership often requires letting go of the need to have every answer. Chris explains the shift many leaders must make after being promoted for their expertise: moving from the person who solves the problem to the leader who creates the conditions for other experts to think, decide, and grow. Questions can build agency, accountability, curiosity, and capability, but only when they come from genuine wonder rather than an attempt to steer...
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#116: Coherence Is the Price of Being Trusted Under Pressure
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #116 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Murray Rodgers, author of The Psychedelic CEO, for a conversation about coherence, internal fragmentation, and the inner state leaders carry into every room Murray describes coherence as a state with less conflict between our thoughts, emotions, and actions. It is not simply calmness. It is the ability to stay present, anchored in what feels true, and responsive to what a moment actually requires. Drawing from his own experience of career success, depression, psychedelic work, being fired from a company he founded, and a...
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#115 The Best Leadership Lessons From My Summer Conversations
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
It’s been a busy summer at Level 52. Rather than publishing our regular August newsletter, we spent the month recording conversations for with leaders, entrepreneurs and coaches who challenged my thinking in unexpected ways. Some conversations confirmed things I believed. Others completely overturned them. This month’s newsletter is a collection of ideas I haven’t been able to shake.
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#114: Leading When Nothing Is Certain
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #114 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Cathie Saroka, Level 52 Coach and Facilitator and CEO of Goldray Glass, for a conversation about leading through uncertainty without carrying the weight alone. Cathie has spent decades leading through recessions, business volatility, personal challenges, the pandemic, and constant change. Her experience has taught her that strong leadership in uncertain times is not about projecting certainty or having every answer. It is about building a team that can think, challenge, adapt, and solve problems together. Jayson and Cathie...
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#113: Resilience Is Not Toughing It Out
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #113 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Lara Koretsky for an honest exploration of resilience, adversity, and growth. Resilience is often described as the ability to bounce back or keep pushing when life becomes difficult. Lara challenges that definition. True resilience is not about returning to who you were before adversity or ignoring the toll it has taken. It is the ability to learn, adapt, recover, and create something stronger from the experience. Drawing from profound personal loss, family challenges, burnout,...
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#112: How Transparent Leaders Build Trust in Tough Times
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #112 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by experienced entrepreneur, former CEO, and TEC Canada Chair Mark Terrill for a candid conversation about transparency in leadership. They explore why transparency is essential for building trust, particularly during difficult periods, and why employees create their own explanations when leaders fail to communicate clearly. Mark also explains why effective transparency does not mean sharing everything. Leaders must balance openness with confidentiality, timing, focus, and empathy. When handled poorly, transparency can become...
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#111: The Practice of Curiosity and Why Leaders Default to Certainty
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
A 360-degree review told Tyler Chisholm exactly what was wrong with his leadership: he filled every room, jumped to conclusions, and never let his team finish a sentence. His team had stopped contributing. They were just waiting to be told what to do. In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause talks with Tyler Chisholm, CEO and author of Curious as Hell, about the moment that feedback forced him to rebuild how he leads. Tyler unpacks the difference between the leader he was in the boardroom and the host he'd become on his own podcast, and how closing that gap turned curiosity from...
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#110: Your Empathy Might Be Making You a Worse Leader
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
Empathy gets treated like a personality trait: you either have it or you don't. Roxana Radulescu, Level 52 coach and facilitator, argues that's wrong. It's a muscle, and most leaders are either overusing it, avoiding it, or using it to avoid the hard conversation instead of having it. In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause talks with Roxana about what empathy actually is (her definition: care plus trust), what it isn't (sympathy, agreement, an excuse to skip feedback), and where it goes wrong at the top of organizations. They dig into a Yale psychologist's argument that...
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#108: Why Burnout Isn't a Workload Problem
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
Most leaders think burnout comes from too much work. So they respond with wellness programs, lighter workloads, and lunch hour yoga. Then nothing changes. In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause sits down with Dr. Tianne Foster, physician, burnout researcher, and author of Reality Check, to unpack what actually drives burnout and why most organizations are solving the wrong problem. Trained across Canada, the US, and the UK, Dr. Foster became obsessed with burnout after a senior physician told her entire class to get out of medicine while they still could. Her conclusion:...
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#109 MML What does high performance actually look like?
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
Welcome to The Meaningful Leader — July Edition. This month, we’re looking at the invisible forces that shape how leaders and teams actually perform: the standards we fail to define, the belonging we misunderstand, the thinking environments we create, and the warning lights we ignore. Three of this month’s sections were sparked by great conversations I had on with Level 52 coach and facilitator - Jessica Heafey, Flow state advisor - Dr. Murray Heber, and author of Reality Check - Dr. Tianne Foster. Links to each full discussion are below. But the thread running through all of...
info_outlineEmotional intelligence gets sold as the soft side of leadership. Most leaders either dismiss it or try to become warmer. Liz Doyle Harmer argues both responses miss the point entirely.
In this episode of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause sits down with transformational leadership coach and facilitator Liz Doyle Harmer to unpack what emotional intelligence actually demands of leaders and why the conventional approach to developing it is failing.
Liz coaches leaders and teams in fast-moving, high-stakes environments, and her work is built around a counterintuitive premise: what teams need from their leaders isn't a safer space, it's a braver one.
In this episode:
Why emotional intelligence is a precision skill, not a personality trait
The difference between a "safe" team culture and a "brave" one
How leaders mistake warmth for genuine emotional skill
What actually unlocks human potential in complex, fast-moving environments
The EQ capacity most leaders systematically underinvest in
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