Leo Bottary: The Trust Crisis in Leadership

In this episode, Quinn Harrington and Naila Mir discuss the evolving landscape of workplace dynamics with Leo Bottary, founder of Peer Novation. They explore the shift from traditional top-down leadership to a model that emphasizes peer power, accountability, and collaboration. 

The conversation delves into the importance of psychological safety, the impact of millennials and Gen Z on organizational culture, and the integration of AI in the workplace. Bottary highlights the significance of diversity and inclusion in peer learning and shares insights on how cultural differences affect peer interactions. The episode concludes with a look at the future of management and the need for clarity in leadership roles.

Transcript

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Welcome to Now Near in the future

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season two. I'm Quinn Harrington.

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And we're joined by Leo Bottari today. And we're talking about the shift from traditional top down leadership

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to something called pure power.

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And while your best ideas might not be coming from the corner office.

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now

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You know, the thing I love about having you here, Leo,

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is that I can see Nyla is just lighting up because she's

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her core business is employee engagement and communications,

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where I'm just like, okay, can we talk about, like, design or, you know, video? And

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I was like, hush, Quinn, hush. I'm on a roll here.

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Hey, Nyla, remember having Sadaf on here in season one and she was talking about quiet leadership, how to

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do you factor in

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people who may not have the most dynamic personality be seen as an influencer,

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but

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when they speak,

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they speak with a lot of gravity.

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Very well put.

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we're about ready for a round the room.

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Yes,

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Shall we go around the room?

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Around the room.

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I guess you are. Nyla. You spoke first.

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I was, attended a

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board meetings for the

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School of Creative Arts and Letters at Flagler College. My alum

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and we had a breakout session where we got to talking about

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agenda AI

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and how very soon we're moving into end to end interconnected AI systems.

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I gave a talk there a couple of years ago.

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Predicted we would be seeing this in five years.

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I was wrong, we're going to be seeing it starting in early 2026.

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And,

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big companies are already

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looking into this technology and, and, and piloting it. So

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it's going to be a big change for people in marketing and communications and honestly, across the supply chain. About you, Leo.

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Where can people go and see your schedule of things that they would

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be able to attend?

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Okay.

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Let's properly introduce our guest, Leo Batari,

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the founder of innovation and an award winning author of multiple books on peer learning and team dynamics,

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including Peer Innovation and the Power of Peers.

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He's also an adjunct professor at Rutgers University.

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After decades in corporate experience and PR, Leo discovered the transformative power of peer advisory groups

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and has dedicated his career to helping organizations harness peer influence for

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higher performance.

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His work spans five continents, proving that the best solutions often come from from within organizations,

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not from the top down.

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Leo, where can people find you on social and online?

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Excellent.

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Shall we move into the near segment?

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This one's mine. Niall, are you going to be okay?

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All right. We'll try to get through this quickly so we can get to some of your questions. As I know this is like your baby.

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Leo, let's shift to the near future.

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near

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The next 3 to 5 years.

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Here's a statistic that caught my attention.

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By 2030, millennials and Gen Z will make up 75% of the workforce.

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How will this fundamentally change

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how organizations operate?

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Yeah, and and I was a little nervous about that

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at first. When we first met. She was quite dismissive on it. And I was like, I don't know, girlfriend like, you don't understand

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stuff that's happening.

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You know, I.

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Any examples?

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That.

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Wow.

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I mean, I've definitely heard of,

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AI driven podcasts, but

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you're the first person I've ever talked to who's created one.

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What? What kind of engagement are you getting?

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Sure.

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way and how I'm posting it at this point,

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but,

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Where can we watch it?

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Where can we watch or listen to it? Is it on your personal page or innovation? Okay.

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Right. Like you're learning things from the article that you wrote and you're like,

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shit, why didn't I think about that?

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Right.

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Excellent.

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And go ahead.

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Yes.

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Right.

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Let's take this, conversation into the Across the pond segment.

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Because I know you've worked internationally. Now you want to take us across the pond.

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across the pond,

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Wow.

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Which reminds me, we need to,

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start working on that bloopers reel.

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Nyla, we've definitely got some good ones.

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know, for our confessing,

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our.

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No, no, it's it's going a little too smoothly. I got to shake things up or we're going to, you know, we're going to, you know, be pitching a, you know, perfect, inning.

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Yeah. That first episode of the

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podcast that we did, we tried to do this on zoom, which is not the platform for podcasting. Can be done. Long story short, as a professional videographer, I did not actually hit record. I thought I did. We went through a whole 45 minutes of amazing insights, from one of his colleagues.

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He was very generous and said he would do it again, and we actually have never heard back from him. So. Yeah, kind of blew that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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All right, let's let's move on to the future. Crystal ball time.

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the future.

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So my first question for you is,

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will we still have traditional managers and 2040.

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Well, that's something we'll that something look entirely different.

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Okay.

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Is that because of the

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horizontal

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layers that you were talking about, where

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we tend to people are more on a level playing field.

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Yeah. And I'm thinking, you know,

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know, with

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a gentle guy and,

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say ten, 15 years,

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very advanced.

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You're not going to need as many middle level people.

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It's going to be more like,

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I don't know if it'll be more accounts based

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or more role based,

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but it's essentially people that are

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overseeing a genetic process

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versus

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people

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doing a lot of the traditional things that we used to do before.

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So Nyla might be creating a,

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year long communication strategy,

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for a major company

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that

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she implements

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largely herself.

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I might be overseeing,

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product development

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for

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an apparel brand that's not just

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design, but looking at everything from

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strategy to supply chain.

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So

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that's kind of where I see things going from a management point of view,

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because you're, you're various eyes are going to be performing

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these roles, and you will still need a human

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to make sure that we don't

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end up with products like,

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salt and vinegar donuts,

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which I might think is, well, people love salt, they love vinegar.

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They love donuts. Why not put them together? You know, I think there's a reason you haven't seen them on the shelf yet. So I know there are savory donuts out there,

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but, I think Nyla calls them biscuits. So.

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well said.

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She like, I like to take us to the wrap. Nyla. Okay.

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Yes,

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It's

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absolutely.

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I'm glad you got that worked in.

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I would have felt bad if we didn't. Well, that wraps up this episode of now here. In the future you can find us on on all the usual platforms Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon and if you want to watch on YouTube,

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follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Now Near Future

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or visit us at Now Near future.com.

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Leo. Remind us where we can find you on

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social and on the web.

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Great.

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As always, stay curious and keep dreaming.