Adam Grant

speaker

346 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 24 Jul

Adam Grant’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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The Rest Is Politics: US · The Leadership Mistake Almost Everyone Makes (Adam Grant) · 24 Jul 2026 podcast

Ooh, well, how many hours do you have, Katty?

Okay, good.

Well, I'm going to say I'm looking for basically two things.

I'm looking for character and competence.

And I think the competence part is talked about all the time.

We need someone who can exercise good judgment and make smart decisions.

We need somebody who can do vision and strategy, somebody who can resolve conflict and align people.

I don't think we talk enough about the character aspects.

I don't think we talk enough about the importance of leaders embodying generosity, humility, and integrity.

And when I think about those character strengths, those are the qualities that allow leaders to say, my mission is more important than my ego, which is sadly more rare than I would like to admit in leadership.

This is a conversation I have with my own teams when I have to lead, which I try not to do whenever I can avoid it.

No, it's much easier to study it than it is to live it.

So I think that what I've learned to say to my teams is, look, there are moments when our natural impulse is to be a cheerleader or a critic.

And when you're cheerleading, you're basically applauding the best version of someone.

When you're criticizing, you're attacking the worst version of someone.

But what I've always benefited the most from and what I want to be for you is a coach.

I think a coach is somebody who sees a better version of you and helps you realize your potential.

And in order to do that, sometimes I'm going to have to tell you things that don't feel good today, but allow you to grow tomorrow.

And I think too often leaders get stuck in one or the other.

They think they need to either fix you today or they need to prop you up today.

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