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 a personality trait into a daily discipline. They get into where curiosity actually helps, where it gets weaponized into control, and what it takes to build a team that feels safe enough to think out loud.

They cover:

• The feedback that forced a leadership reset
• Curiosity as a practice, not a trait: self, relational, and strategic curiosity
• How questions get weaponized to control instead of learning
• Where curiosity fails (and command and control takes over)
• A simple tool for pausing before you react
• What actually predicts whether a leader succeeds or fails

If your meetings go quiet the moment you start talking, this one's worth the full hour.

Follow Jayson Krause:

YouTube: / @jaysonkrauseleadership
LinkedIn: / jayson-krause

0:00 - Introduction
0:41 - The 360 Review That Changed His Leadership
3:43 - What Changed When "Podcast Tyler" Led Meetings
6:00 - Tracking Fixed vs. Growth Mindset After Every Call
8:41 - From Playful Trait to Deliberate Practice
10:05 - Why Tyler Wrote Curious as Hell
13:21 - Writing in Flow: AI as Collaborator
15:50 - The Self Curiosity the Book Forced to the Surface
17:31 - Defining Curiosity as a Leadership Practice
19:16 - The "No Time to Be Curious" Myth
22:03 - The Latin Root of Curiosity
28:44 - Weaponizing Curiosity
29:39 - Isn't a Leader's Job to Manipulate?
37:18 - Self Curiosity Comes First
39:19 - When Curiosity Isn't the Right Tool
42:17 - The Tactical Sigh
45:08 - Would You Rather: Curious vs. Safe to Be Curious Around
46:34 - Creating the Conditions for Curiosity
49:13 - The Nuclear Button
52:06 - The Cost of Reacting Instead of Leading
53:00 - True or False: Questions and Culture Health
56:02 - The Worst Advice About Curiosity
57:31 - "Tell Me More": Curious vs. Diagnostic Questions
59:38 - How to Know Curiosity Is Missing
1:02:42 - Know When to Call a Coach
1:04:51 - The Invisible Force Behind Leadership Success
1:06:26 - Closing Thoughts

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 oversharing, venting, or an overload of information that creates more fear than alignment.

This episode will challenge you to consider what your team needs to hear, what you may be withholding, and how more intentional communication could strengthen your leadership.

Episode timestamps:

00:00 Can a leader become more transparent?
01:13 The cost of holding back
06:43 Why transparency builds trust
09:45 Transparency versus full disclosure
11:47 Mark's leadership journey
22:14 What transparency really means
26:22 Why openness is mistaken for weakness
31:04 What breaks when transparency is missing
31:54 Leading transparently through tough times
34:04 The illusion of transparency
36:55 Becoming a more transparent leader
37:48 Mark's greatest moment of self-doubt
42:10 Spotting a lack of transparency
44:42 Advanced transparency
49:03 The dark side of transparency
52:00 Transparency versus venting
54:04 The transparency paradox
56:01 When total transparency becomes harmful
58:21 Getting transparency right
61:37 Can transparency reduce honesty?
64:09 Damaging transparency advice
65:37 Can transparent leaders fail?
66:43 The importance of pivoting quickly
68:38 Final takeaway

Follow Jayson Krause
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Voc2qOmcqGKfqy6CDiZOw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/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, career transitions, and years of developing leaders, Lara explains why resilience is not a fixed personality trait. It is a capacity that can be strengthened.

Jayson and Lara explore the five pillars of resilience, the difference between grit and grind, why workplaces often reward the wrong behaviours, and how perseverance can become toxic when it causes people to tolerate the intolerable.

They also examine an important leadership tension: how do you challenge people to grow without rescuing them, overwhelming them, or carrying their backpack for them?

Episode timestamps:

00:00 What resilience really is

00:40 Lara's experience with adversity

01:51 Resilience is a muscle

02:23 Lessons from Lara's father

03:24 Medical assistance in dying

04:21 Creativity through grief

06:21 Lara's career journey

08:58 Feeling least resilient

10:10 Learning from rejected feedback

11:19 The kintsugi metaphor

13:35 Moving beyond "bouncing back"

15:19 Owning your role in adversity

16:35 Defining resilience

16:45 Why grinding through is not resilience

17:31 Choosing where to persist

19:30 Recovery creates growth

20:13 Myths about resilience

21:09 When organizations reward burnout

23:28 Why leaders wait until it is too late

25:22 Building resilience proactively

25:31 The five pillars of resilience

29:09 Humour versus avoidance

30:29 Stealing opportunities for growth

31:38 Do not carry someone else's backpack

34:04 Choosing hope

35:22 Choice within resilience

35:57 The downside of resilience

37:47 Can resilience prevent growth?

40:58 Toxic perseverance

42:18 Grit versus grind

43:11 Knowing when to keep going

44:24 Strategic quitting

45:22 Organizational responsibility for resilience

46:08 Expanding people's capacity

47:50 Workload and real priorities

49:03 Why recovery is essential

49:29 Resilience and stress exposure

50:58 Training adaptability

51:50 How organizations create fragility

53:37 Hiring for resilience

54:48 Where leaders should begin

56:29 The worst resilience advice

56:45 The key lesson

57:09 Writing your resilience story

59:03 Stepping into the real work

60:00 Closing reflections

Follow Jayson Krause

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

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