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#116: Coherence Is the Price of Being Trusted Under Pressure

Release Date: 09/09/2026

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...

#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...

#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.

#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...

#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,...

#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...

#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...

#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...

#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:...

#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...

More Episodes

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 decade of deeper personal work, Murray explains how external achievement can coexist with internal fragmentation.

Jayson and Murray explore why leaders transmit their internal state to teams, how anger and anxiety can become signals worth listening to, why truth can carry real social and professional costs, and what it takes to reduce the noise that keeps us disconnected from ourselves.

They also examine the role of psychedelics, breath, integration, and presence in Murray’s journey, along with a central leadership question: can you remain coherent in a fragmented or toxic environment without simply avoiding what needs to change?

Episode timestamps:

00:34 Coherence and personal scar tissue

01:08 What internal fragmentation feels like

02:30 The primary wound and the authentic self

04:04 The path to The Psychedelic CEO

07:53 Why leadership development misses the inner state

09:50 Finding the signal in the noise

11:06 Defining coherence

12:01 What coherence feels like

13:49 Friction, achievement, and inner peace

15:17 Transforming emotion through integration

16:06 What fragmented leaders do to teams

18:39 Anger, joy, and the inner dialogue

20:12 Psychedelics and self-knowledge

21:32 The work of integration

24:15 What people misunderstand about coherence

25:37 Truth and the cost of coherence

26:55 The golden column of being

27:47 Presence as coherence

29:52 When standing in truth costs you

31:05 Coherence and responsibility for impact

32:00 Being fired for taking a stand

34:29 Imposter syndrome and ignored parts of self

35:09 Recognizing the quieter voice

36:15 The grass is greener on the inside

37:28 Would you rather: coherence or shared values?

39:02 Can you stay coherent in a toxic culture?

40:48 When coherence becomes ineffective

42:17 How to know you need more coherence

43:57 The simplest practice: breathe differently

45:13 What coherence feels like in practice

46:55 What coherent communities make possible

48:10 The worst advice about coherence

49:15 Less noise, more space

50:54 Slowing down to find the signal

52:31 The invisible force behind leadership success

53:55 Where to find Murray

Learn more about Murray Rodgers: www.thepsychedelicceo.com

Follow Jayson Krause

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Voc2qOmcqGKfqy6CDiZOw

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-krause/

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