Corporate power is real, sometimes rivaling the GDP of entire nations. So what do we expect from companies in return? In this episode of the Business and Society series, Nicole digs into Corporate Social Responsibility: what it actually means, where it came from, and why compliance alone has never been enough. We cover the Iron Law of Responsibility, the four pillars of CSR (economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic), the triple bottom line, enlightened self-interest, and the honest debate about how far companies should actually go. Plus: the case for CSR, the case against it, and why the answer is almost always more complicated than either side admits.

Are leaders born or made? It's one of the oldest questions in leadership research, and the answer, as with most things, is more complicated than either side of the debate wants to admit. In this episode, Nicole walks through the two foundational approaches to understanding what makes someone an effective leader: the trait approach and the skills approach. We cover the Great Man theories, what decades of research actually say about which traits matter most, and why being too smart for the room is a real phenomenon. Plus the Big Five personality factors ranked by their connection to leadership, Nicole's confession about being a big-time introvert, and why the toolbox metaphor matters more than the fixed-trait one. Then we shift to skills — what the three-skill model says about technical, human, and conceptual abilities, why human skills show up as essential at every level of every organization, and what Mumford's Capability Model adds to the picture. The bottom line: you don't need to be a born leader to become an effective one. You need self-awareness and a plan.

What is leadership, really? Not the title, not the corner office, the actual process. In this first episode of the Leadership series, Nicole starts where every good leadership conversation should: with the argument that you're already leading whether you realize it or not. We work through a research-grounded definition, trace how leadership theory has evolved from command-and-control to something far more relational and ethical, and introduce the difference between assigned leadership, the title, and emergent leadership, the influence you actually build. Plus the six bases of power, why charisma without integrity is a risk, and whether bad leadership still counts as leadership.