Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!

PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills

One of the fastest ways to weaken your influence as a PMO, project, or transformation leader is also one of the most common.

It sounds responsible. It sounds like alignment. It sounds like you are reinforcing executive support.

But every time you lead with “the sponsor said,” “the boss wants,” or “executives told me to,” you may be training the organization to look past you for the real decision maker.

That is how capable leaders accidentally become messengers.

In this episode, I share how delivery leaders dilute their own authority without realizing it and what to say instead. Because sponsors matter. Executive support matters. But hiding behind borrowed authority is not leadership. It positions you as the person passing along instructions instead of the leader responsible for helping the organization deliver outcomes.

What you’ll learn:

🔹 Why “the boss said so” quietly damages your credibility and authority

🔹 The difference between borrowed authority, positional authority, and business authority

🔹 How to use sponsor influence strategically without hiding behind it

🔹 What to say when you need resources, decisions, or support from another leader

🔹 How to connect requests to business outcomes instead of hierarchy

🔹 Why executives want leaders who can drive progress when they are not in the room

Press play and learn how to stop sounding like the messenger and start communicating like the leader responsible for the outcome.

P.S. Next up in The IMPACT Application Lab is Make Your Case, where I’ll help you turn one real strategy delivery challenge into a clear, leadership-ready case for change.

If you already know something needs to change but need help showing leaders, sponsors, stakeholders, or your team why it matters now, this workshop is for you.

It’s FREE for everyone who owns The IMPACT Engine. Your book is your ticket.

📚 Get the book here.

👥 Join IMPACT Insiders here.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!

I welcome your feedback and insights!

I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!

Warmly,

Laura Barnard

GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!

PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

There is a lot of pressure to prove your organization is keeping up with AI.

But the most important question is not whether AI is already inside your tools. It is whether your organization understands the work well enough to know what AI is about to amplify.

AI is exposing the difference between the way work is documented and the way work actually gets done. The process map shows the official steps. The real work often moves through conversations, relationships, judgment, informal decisions, and workarounds that never make it into the workflow.

I’m joined by David Dean, author of An Inbox Between Us and an enterprise AI strategist with two decades of experience in transformation. David calls AI a mirror because it can help leaders see the behavioral system operating beneath the formal one. That visibility can reveal where decisions stall, accountability drifts, people wait for permission, and teams quietly compensate for an operating model that is not helping the work move.

This matters for PMO and transformation leaders because the wrong first move is often to automate the process everyone already knows is frustrating. As David explains, AI can scale useful behavior, but it can also industrialize dysfunction. The better move is to slow down long enough to understand the pattern, solve the human problem underneath it, and then decide where technology can create meaningful business IMPACT.

What you will hear:

🔹 Why AI is revealing how work really gets done, not simply replacing tasks.

🔹 How the written contract and the unwritten contract shape organizational performance.

🔹 Why self-service AI and controlled AI require different expectations and guardrails.

🔹 What AI can reveal about slow decisions, unclear authority, and hidden workarounds.

🔹 How a simple spoken digital journal can be a starting point for organizational self-awareness.

Press play to hear how PMO and transformation leaders can use AI as a mirror, protect human judgment, and improve the operating model before they accelerate the wrong work.

Connect with David Dean

Visit David’s website

Connect with David on LinkedIn

Explore An Inbox Between Us

P.S. AI can expose the real problem. The next IMPACT Application Lab helps you turn that problem into a leadership-ready reason for action. Make Your Case is live on August 20 and free for everyone who owns The IMPACT Engine. Get your book and join Make Your Case here.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!

I welcome your feedback and insights!

I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!

Warmly,

Laura Barnard

GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!

PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills

What if the biggest thing limiting your influence is not your methodology, your governance model, your tools, or even your executive support?

What if it is the mindset you have been operating from without realizing it?

In PMO, project, and transformation work, scarcity is everywhere: not enough time, not enough funding, not enough resources, not enough sponsor support, not enough executive attention. And when you live inside that “not enough” environment every day, it can start shaping how you lead.

Scarcity mindset can cause leaders to protect territory, hold back information, compete for recognition, wait for permission, or delay investing in their own growth because they are too busy, too overwhelmed, or too focused on the cost.

But influence does not grow through protection.

It grows through value creation.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How scarcity mindset shows up in PMO and transformation leadership.

• Why “not enough” thinking can quietly shape the way you lead.

• How protecting territory, information, or credit can limit your future influence.

• Why investing in your own growth is not optional if you want to lead at the next level.

• What abundance mindset looks like for IMPACT Drivers.

• Why you do not wait until you are ready — you get ready by taking action.

This episode is for PMO, project, and transformation leaders who are tired of waiting for perfect conditions, permission, or certainty before stepping into the leader they know they are capable of becoming.

Press play and start shifting from “not enough” to “how might we make this work?”

P.S. AI can expose the real problem. The next IMPACT Application Lab helps you turn that problem into a leadership-ready reason for action. Make Your Case is live on August 20 and free for everyone who owns The IMPACT Engine. Get your book and join Make Your Case here.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast!

I welcome your feedback and insights!

I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online!

Warmly,

Laura Barnard

GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS